001All right, you are live. >> All right, good morning. It's 7 o'clock in the secondary school media center and we'll call the meeting to order and we'll start with pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, roll call. Vincent >> here. >> Sour here. >> Sandstead here. >> Porter here. >> And Gross >> here. >> All right. Do we have any public comment this morning? Any of you daring youngsters would like to address the board for any purpose? >> It's a really big bonus in class if you do, especially when the teacher's in the room. All right, then we will move on. Um there you have
002the agenda in front of you. There are no changes. Are there any other additions or corrections anyone notices? Then I would look for a motion to adopt the agenda as it is presented. >> So move >> and a second. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> Motion carries. >> That'll bring us to business manager report. >> Good morning. >> Okay. Good morning. You should have my report and there's a few things to go through. Um, so I did change the format just a little bit, but um it's pretty self-explanatory. Um, so the first page is the general fund and um later in the agenda we'll have um a request for approval of a revised budget. So um in the yellow column shows the revision the revised budget um so for and then compared
003to the green which was what was adopted back um prior to the fiscal year start. So um for revenues um what was updated was um the student counts so to get them closer to alignment as to what we are right now. Um it that did make the revenue go down a little bit and then we added a grant that we are receiving this year for YST. So um revenue projection did go down about 83,000 in the revised budget. And then for expenditures, the big changes were in salaries and benefits. So now that all the contracts are settled, we put we have the actual salary and benefit estimates in there. So that's a lot closer to what we expect. That caused an increase in our revised budget by about 127,000. So, um, what I added on
004the bottom was a general fund surplus/deicit. So, that shows we originally projected about a 5,500 um, surplus and now we're projecting a 204,000 deficit. Um this is a very conservative budget though. So we do have revenues [clears throat] estimated low, expenditures estimated high. So hopefully it'll be more of a break even when we have the actual. So those are the changes in the general fund. And then what else I is on this sheet is the November 30th balances in comparison this year compared to the two prior years. revenue 21.8% of our estimated of our revised budget compared to 23% the year before. I did look and some of our metered payments are coming in a little slower than they did in the previous year. So that should catch up. And then for general fund expenditures,
005we've spent about 33.9 in comparison to 33.3.6 the year before. So very comparable. So those are the general fund updates. Any questions on that, >> Tanya? And just a couple of items of note there, right? You had said so we've got the outstanding payment going to the lawn in snow removal. >> Uh oh, yes. >> Is it now included in the budget? And then we also have the staging is included in the budget um for our north and south wall for the district. And then also the equipment for the water towaters in the auditorium. Correct. >> Correct. Yes. >> So those would be some pieces. I mean if you add those up that gets us to the 204,000. So um that's all been addressed and hopefully that'll mean that we still like she said conservatively
006budgeted revenues. Um but as you can see our student enrollment is the biggest piece that knocks our revenues there. So we've got to keep a close eye on that. >> All right. Okay. Then the next page shows all the other funds. I [clears throat] I did add in the third section just a net surplus deficit again so that we can see for each fund what the projections are. So um for the revised budget for food service I estimated the meal count closer to what is actually coming in right now. And then again in all the funds estimating the [clears throat] salary and benefit after the settlements. So food service really a small change 1,500 expected surplus. community ed 184,000 estimated deficit and then debt service 1,200 surplus and trust 100 surplus. So, um, community service
007did, um, have a better budget estimate with, um, increase or actually it's some decreases in expenditures that we had estimated too high in the original budget. So, that's good. Then um again the percentages on the far right for comparing the different actuals as of November 30th. Nothing alarming in in those areas. So any questions questions comments for Tanya? >> Okay. Thank you Tanya. >> Yep. Thank you. >> That brings us to the superintendent report. >> Okay. So, um last Friday we had our next round of PLC's and professional development for our teaching staff. So, the elementary continues with the letters work. Uh quite a daunting piece that they're taking on, but they're doing a great job with that. The prek teachers worked on conscious discipline and now their pair of professionals will be working through
008that as well. Um and so that'll be a great piece for them. And then in the 512 did the PLC's again. And so I had sent out some guiding questions. I guess I just want to make sure that our staff understand the value of the professional learning communities that they're not just time to to uh to visit about non-school related things. And so we really kind of got that set up with some guiding questions and we got some great responses. Uh, one of the pieces there is really the book study that's coming out uh that they're working on the anxious generation and uh finished that book while I was out last week and there's some pieces there. If you've got young kids, I think you'll want to look that over just seeing how uh smartphones
009have really changed how uh we act to different things. And so Ki, I've been in conversation with her to see how do we even spread that out to our families through the collaborative. So, we'll be working through that piece there just a little bit. But, I think you're going to see some positive things through the PLC's, some systemic change things that we're going to be requesting of the board. Um, everything from possibly cell phone stuff to um, uh, some of the connection pieces that that group has surveyed students. So, they were they had the survey due last Friday. So, they were aggregating all that [clears throat] data to see where do kids or students fall right now? Do we have the right activities? And so, they're reviewing those pieces. So, we'll be able to have
010some good information there. I already talked a little bit about the anxious generation. We do have extra copies, so if you'd like a copy of that, let me know. Um, but it is quite interesting. Really kind of talks about the great rewiring of the brain from 2010 to 2015 and probably could be part of the reason for the mental health crisis that uh started at that same point. People have to be connected all the time. I find that as well. I don't have social media, but when I do get up right away, first thing I do is grab my phone, check my bank accounts, check my email accounts, and those pieces there. and then uh do the same thing just before I go to bed as well. So that technology is always with you. But
011it just shows how things have kind of changed since that time and it's just not a US problem. It's all over the world. So that's what this um author talks about. He said if it was just a US thing, he said I could see where people could challenge that. But he said it's in Australia, European countries, New Zealand. And when I was out last week out of the country, those folks are as equally um connected to their phones as well as their employees are working. They're also checking and scrolling and all that stuff as well. So, it's all over the place. Uh, school closing and delay. So, you'll start to see more information. We're planning to start a pilot here in January. We'll do all three school sites, but we'll probably start, I think, at
012the secondary. Hopefully, getting families in uh to kind of do that book study because like I said, it's pretty informative. I believe at least you have information to say, okay, what are some pieces that I could put together um as a parent and as a school? what can we do to hopefully maybe implement some change and really hopefully to imp impact mental health uh for everyone. School closings and delays. Um my phone was buzzing quite a bit on Friday and so it was kind of a wild morning it sounds like, but I'm proud of our team on how they responded, got communication out and those are the tough ones, right? When buses are already out and uh you're not aware that that's coming and that seems to be the trend that we're going to have
013this winter unfortunately. And tomorrow's another day that we'll be keeping an eye on already just to see. Um, however, the melting hopefully is going to cause everything to freeze and crust over. I know it makes the sidewalks very slippery. I found that out a couple days ago walking out the front here. I didn't know I could find the ground that fast, but I found it awfully quickly. So, um, so we'll make sure that we've got the walks taken care of there and things like that, but we'll continue to monitor those conditions. But, as you see, we've already used our TOPS day um on that Wednesday, December 10th. So any additional days up to five will be e-learning and then after that we'd have to start to look to make up those days. As I talk
014about e-learning, I have talked to a few folks. We will convene a team just to see again as I read the anxious generation that kind of says, well, is this really the right pieces on the e-learning piece? I think there's some things that we can look at some variables potentially uh to make sure that we can do what's best for our students at all levels from preK all the way through 12th grade. So, we'll continue to work that. Uh Minnesota paid family medical leave, of course, that starts January 1st. Um there's a lot of information coming out now. I know I was just at the superintendent's uh meeting yesterday at Lakes Country and so there was several things even as superintendent that we're sharing um because there's some pieces that take effect right away in
015January with bonding leave and things like that and and so we'll have to be prepared for that. We were hoping to be set with min uh Madison National Life through National Insurance Services to take care of our paid family medical leave. The deadline wasn't met. So we'll be in April and that is when we'll start there. So we start with the state with their program on January 1st, but then we'll transition over to Madison National. It we'll have to keep a close eye on that because what I heard yesterday from some of the state representatives that I was talking to is um it's capped at 1.1. they're not sure how they're going to be able to keep that cap at 1.1. Um that it's going to be a very expensive program and the state's not
016necessarily prepared for that. And so I think that's something we'll have to keep a close eye on there as well. Just Renaissance, December's a busy month already with concerts, holiday parties, celebrations, and things like that. But I know that they've still got some pieces in the works of uh getting some uh fun activities going. I know they went down to the elementary school to do um a high five Friday. So that sounded like that was very successful and our REN team continues to plan different things at each one of the buildings. And so that'll again continue and we'll look to ramp that up again back in or again will return in January. Leadership conference coming up January 15th and 16th and I know we've got Josh, Ryan, and Ma are planning to attend and Mr.
017Sawatsky will be presenting of course on Thursday at 2:45 about the great things that are happening in our egg program and Representative Anderson I believe was his name. He knew he said so tell me a little bit more about your egg program. He said I'm hearing wonderful things. And so I said yeah we're very proud of our egg program here the great things that are going on and and uh continue to support wherever we can. Holiday break is of course this is one of the few times we'll have the two weeks of Christmas break there for students and staff. School resumes on January 5th and then our organizational and January committee meeting are that Wednesday at 5:30 here at the secondary school media center. All right. Any questions, comments for Mr. Brown though? All right.
018Then we'll move into um the approval payment of claims. Mr. Porter, do you have anything for us there? >> Yeah, just a couple things to note. Uh [clears throat] we have 25 students taking college classes taught by our teachers. So, we paid for those credits to Southwest State University of 13,200. Um our uh Bremer bank is um being renamed or bought by Old National Bank. So you'll see uh new bank name on the statements. And uh our athletic trainer uh from Alammer Health was $7,000. And then the new stage, which we've talked about many times and I think it was mentioned earlier uh today, but $23,121.99 and we will be accepting some donations of $4,570 later. Um so we have a total payment um due of $456,381. [clears throat] All right. Would you like to
019make that motion? >> If there are no no discussion, yes, I will make that motion. >> A second. All in favor say I. >> I. Motion carries. Um that will move us into our consent agenda. Uh you will see the minutes from the November 18th special meeting, the November 19th regular meeting, and the December 3rd committee meeting. Um any questions, comments on the minutes. You will also see the approval of final reading of the following policies with the statutory and recommended revisions from MSBA. Policy 711, video recording on school buses. Policy 712, video recording other than on school buses. You would think they could just say in >> simpler language, >> right? Um policy 720, vending machines. Policy 901, community education. Policy 9007, rewards. Um, and we also have uh one personnel item, the resignation.
020Amanda Bostonramm, the preschool teacher who was currently on unrequested leave of absence, has put in a resignation. Any questions or comments on the consent agenda? Look for a motion to approve. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. Motion carries. Then we'll move into new business. Uh we have the resolution accepting donations. [clears throat] We have the following donations today. Uh Barrett Care Center has donated $50 to the robotics. Uh Mid Minnesota Credit Union, $800 BPA program. Superior Industries, $500 to the robotics. Um Steuart Nordquest, $2,000 donation. Uh, Runeststone Telecom Association, $770 to the John Justins's Renaissance Program. South PTO donated $250 to the Justin's Renaissance program. And the Kensington Lions Club donated $200 to the robotics program. Um, any questions, comments on any of those? And I would look for a motion
021to approve the resolution accepting those donations. So >> move second. >> We have a motion and a second. Uh we'll do a roll call vote. Uh >> yes. >> Vincent, >> yes. >> Gross, >> yes. >> Porter, >> yes. >> Sanstead, >> yes. >> And Sour, >> yes. >> And I'll be a yes as well. And then we will move to the approve the budget revision. Did you want any comments? Is Tanya still on? Any is it just those items that we were not >> from her report? Yep. It's the exact same piece there. Tanya, are you still? >> Yep. >> Yes. Everything I reported um just for all the changes that we made to the budget. So, no additions. >> Okay. Any questions, comments on that? And I'll look for a motion to approve
022the budget revision. >> Is there a second? >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Um we will certify the 2025 payable 2026 levy for 2,783,74162. I get that. >> That's correct. Yep. Could I get a motion to certify that levy? >> So move. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Uh then we have the uh agreement with Krauss Anderson for pre-referendum and construction management services. Any comments you'd like to make there, Mr. Brown? There's a lot of verbiage, but I did talk to Michael Bars and he said it's a standard agreement that they use with all the schools that they go into. The key components being it's 11,000 for the pre-referendum planning services to help us with getting the
023bond passed and then the pre-construction services are 30,000 um after that has to happen after the successful passage of the of the bond. So um that's what the costs were. that's what they had uh illustrated when they presented their information and so there's no changes from that. Um and so I would recommend that we approve that to move forward with with Krauss Anderson. >> So a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion on that topic? All in favor say I. >> I. Motion carries. All right. >> [snorts] >> And then we're [cough] into our [clears throat] discussion items. Uh we have the kind of the midyear check on the superintendent report. Um you should have gotten an email um kind of with Mr. Brown's uh deliverables if you want to say.
024Um everybody get a chance to look at that. Everybody got it correct? >> Yes. Um, that's a pretty comprehensive list. I guess two questions, I guess. One, is there any is there any comments, questions, concerns about any of the items that were in the list? And then I guess my next question is is um is this the right focus currently? Is there anything that anybody would say we need to address or or shift the focus as we've kind of address some some items that we talked about previously on the superintendent evaluation? Um is there a any tweaks any um adjustments? Is there anything new currently that we say, you know what, we we thought this in June, now we think in December, we need to focus in this direction or is this a we continue
025where we're at right now. Everybody is uh on board with that. Any comments in that direction? >> Well, I the only comment I would have is it looks like you've assated a nice list of things you've done. It might be good us to see, you know, at some point informally, what what are you hoping to what what other pieces are you hoping to um move forward between now and end of the school year? Sure. Because it's hard. There's a million things, right? Which are the biggies? >> And so that might be nice for us just to hear that maybe in a weekly update or something. >> Okay, I can do that. So I don't know if you see the very bottom, it does say plans for continued improvement. So firm presence on social media to
026inform the community of school initiatives, facilities, updates, and community engagement. So I think that'll be [clears throat] that's a piece that we've talked about incorporating with Destiny there. I think right away in January, we need to get information out on our operational expenses currently just to kind of show people where our current statuses of pieces. So we'll roll that out. Uh we've also talked about the what does it mean to be a night and so we want to start rolling that out as as well. Also, I think those will be some of the pieces there that'll continue to move forward and get out through social media, our district newsletters, the newspaper. Um, you know, we've talked a lot about the survey and so I know we've surveyed before using the Jins's tool. We'll do that
027again, but I also know that there's just small surveys that can be put together um just checking on a systems check to say, hey, school safety and security. Um Darren has talked about e-learning some of those pieces there to say do we need to address some of those pieces um through our systems but that's going to include our students staff parents and community um so that they all have an opportunity. Uh again my work prior to arriving here is we always had a systems check survey on the on the website that people could fill out say hey these are the things that are going well. It could be simply I appreciate the fact that there's an adult supervisor out on the playground at the end of the day. thanks for doing that. I feel, you
028know, good that my kids are out there in their supervision. Um or it could be, hey, the parking lot at the secondary school, I don't feel safe driving through there because we've got students and adults driving through there um you know, not paying attention to the lines or anything like that. And so we just try to figure ways to address some of those pieces. So it's a good way to get feedback there um in those surveys. And often times what I hear about school safety, especially if you look at the high reliability schools model, they say the people to talk to sometimes are your pair professionals, your custodians, because students sometimes respond differently. Uh they're not always watching. If the custodians, you know, cleaning up the floor and all of a sudden there's language going
029on or there's something that's not supposed to be happening, they'll just do it. And so they oftentimes say your custodians are your best reporters on those types of things. And sometimes then at a leadership team meeting, the staff says, "Hey, we need to have somebody here at the bathroom at this point." you know, standing outside of the bathrooms there to monitor or this corner when all a sudden they turn the corner, there seems to be some horseplay and things like that. So, that would be an area we'd look there. Um, and then I think just seeing our PLC's again, there's so much value in our PLC's if they're done right. And so eventually we'll transition from these systemic pieces to content areas. So then our math teachers start to look at their content to say,
030okay, it's a little more difficult for us where we don't have three teachers that teach geometry. So they can do um common assessments where they say, hey, your class, you know, we're doing this common assessment in this in this topic area. How come your students did so well? How did you present that material differently than I did? Um, but there's still ways that we can do that in our smaller school where they can get together to say, and it really works well in the elementary, right? We've got three sections. And so when they can get together to say, "Hey, here's where we're at. I really had a hard time getting through on this concept or there's some ideas, some strategies, they can put those interventions together, come back and say, hey, this worked really well
031or here's what we're going to do." Um, things like that. And so really getting those pieces to to take shape. right now of course letters has dominated all of that in our elementary but in the secondary we'll be doing that work as well so starting here um because I did talk to Mr. Wood about a little bit. He was quite honestly he said I think our PLC's have been non-existent since maybe Claire was here and they did some pieces with um target uh learning targets and things like that. And so that's an important piece I believe uh to make sure we continue to move in the right direction that way. So really getting that strengthened and hopefully you'll start to see some pieces. I think our curriculum advisory is also going to be a great
032piece as we move forward there because that's also been neglected for several years and so we want to get that back where one we have great curriculum but two we make sure that our curriculum's aligned to the standards and two and three we're teaching you know using those pieces there as well >> that was very helpful thank you >> all right any other questions comments on the [clears throat] midyear evaluation piece Then I did notice one topic that we did not put in for discussion was the our memberships. We have our organizational meeting coming up in January on the 7th. Um Kayla will not be [snorts] present. So we did talk about going just going through the list quick to make sure that Kayla gets to maybe have a little bit of say in the
033things that we put her on next month. And uh so anyway, you you were all given the committee memberships there. Um if you want to, we can just go quickly down the line. We have the obviously the buildings and ground facility planning committee with Nathan, Darren, and Ryan. Um is there any anyone that hates being on that committee or anybody that says I really want to be on that committee instead of a different one? And I think that one's going to bump up to four times, right? I think Chad had asked for regular meetings. So I think we're going to try to get a regular meeting. He'll be there like the even numbered months that will just before the board committee meeting at 5:30. So we meet maybe at 4:15 or whatever and go through
034that. So it's a regularly scheduled committee meeting, not just okay, do we have things to talk about, then we schedule it and post it and things like that. That would make it more regular. So, I would say I could probably cross off the two and it's probably safer to say four times per year or maybe I'll say four to six cuz six times would be So, maybe I'll list that from four to six. >> Okay. And you guys are all okay with that continued membership. >> Perfect. >> And then just for clarity, I should say we're not taking action, right? We're just discussing. So, action will be at the organization. >> We're just having conversation here so we make sure that uh you know we don't [clears throat] won't be here. And so I know
035there's six other committees she's going to get put on, but uh >> we didn't list those yet. Those that's the final page. >> We'll talk about that. So uh that brings us the finance committee. That is myself, uh Mr. Porter, and Mr. Olrich. Um one to two times a year. I don't know if there's anybody that says they really want to be on finance committee. >> I'm good with it. >> Okay. So, we'll just leave, you know, that's that's fine. Uh, personnel committee would be myself, uh, Kayla and Claire. Um, we really haven't had a lot of meetings as far as personnel wise. I don't know. >> I've just consulted with you on some pieces. Yep. So, we haven't really had to bring up many meetings there, but um anybody that says, "Boy, I really
036want to be on that meeting that doesn't meet very often." All right. Um public engagement, that is Kayla, Claire, and Josh. They've kind of already started a little bit, so they've put some stuff. >> That one I would say is going to be a little more active, probably similar to the buildings and grounds going in [snorts] the next year here. So, um, [clears throat] as long as you guys are okay to stay there, we'll just leave it how it is, unless somebody says, "I really want to do public engagement this year." All right. Uh, policies, that's the entire board. We do that monthly basically. So, that one won't change much. Meet and confer is myself, Nathan, and Ryan. Um, we are at about that three times a year. Um I think we've had pretty good
037discussions our last few um times. Anybody that says I really want to do that one otherwise we'll leave that away the way it is. Uh curriculum co-curriculum myself Claire and Nathan. Um, we haven't really had much of a >> I mean, Claire said on the curriculum review committee, but yeah, I guess there I mean, you know, as we work through some of our pairing agreements, I would say that's probably going to be something where there will be >> more time there if we have any sticking points or things like that just to get together. And we have a few >> we have pairing agreements with Ashby and Brandon Evansville. Morris is where we have tennis, but so far those have worked out well. But it might be an opportunity at certain points to say, "Hey,
038you know, we maybe there's a course offering that we'd like to provide, but we just don't have enough students to make that position attractive. The teacher's not coming for two hours a day, right? But maybe we can work out something there, too." That would be an opportunity. Maybe it comes down to something in our business office down the road where we say, "Hey, we we all believe, well, let's use payroll as the example, right? We all believe that payroll is a vital piece that we need. Can we get together as schools to maybe offer a more attractive position and we work together that way? Would have to come up with that agreement on that as well. [snorts] All right. Uh negotiations, we have the three separate groups. Um certified staff is myself, Nathan, and Josh.
039Uh support staff is Kayla, Darren, and Ryan. and administration is Darren and Claire. This should be I mean we've this should be a not much of a negotiation year. So I I mean if anybody really wants to switch, you're not going to get much of a taste of what those negotiations are going to be because they're done for next year on your resume. >> It'll be the following year that that really is going to be used again. So um just be aware of that. doesn't matter to me. But if everybody's okay, we just probably leave it where it's at. Again, we aren't going to there won't be any negotiations this next calendar year. Um that will be the following year that we'll start into those again. So, um unless there's anybody concerned about that then
040the representative Kayla, you are on the community education. Any issues there? >> Okay. You are also on the ECFE. Any issues with that one? I've got you down for the Child and Youth Council as well. >> Uh, so I'm on the Child and Youth Council. That is goes pretty well. Um, Darren, you've got legislative. Any issues there? Okay. State High School League. Josh. Okay. should have an in now. The state high school e uh Midwest special education we have Claire and Ryan as alternate. Is that going okay? Okay. Corporate sponsor Darren. That's all right. Okay. And then education foundation Nathan. >> All right. Any other issues that way? All right. So, I guess things will probably stay about where they're at unless we decide to change our mind while Kila's not in the room and
041then we'll have surprises for. So, any other issues? That brings us to item number eight. >> So, move carries. Meeting is adjourned at 7:35. You