001All right, you are live. >> All right, good morning. It's 7:02 in the secondary school media center and we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge algiance 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. >> Roll call. Porter >> here. Sandstead >> here. >> Sour >> here. >> I'm here. Olrich >> here. >> Vincent >> here. >> Angross >> here. >> All right. Um we don't have any public comment this morning. Uh so we will move into um modifying the agenda. A couple items. One, we will add a um an additional committee report under uh for 3.2 two um from the sign committee and then we will also um we're just going to
002flip-flop facility planning process up before the closed session so we can have that conversation um before we close the meeting. So um otherwise are there any other additions or modifications to the agenda hearing? None. Is there a motion to adopt the agenda as modified? >> So second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. Motion carries and we will move into our Justin's Renaissance team report. >> Good morning. >> Yeah. Come on up so everybody can see you. >> All right. So, a little backstory um to kind of lay some understanding of how this all came about. Um I went to a session at the Minnesota Principles Conference that was on culture and climate and it happened to be put on by Johnson's Renaissance. Um and it was by Phil Campbell who is kind of
003the main person that spearheads this program. Um, and it was really really good and it was and you know I think sometime I had to overcome like some personal feelings that just is you know they have sales people they're here for class rings they do that stuff and so it's like well how can their framework for culture and climate be right that was kind of my preconceived notion that I had but turned out that there's some really really awesome um things that are offered through their Renaissance framework and because we are a school and we order our caps and gowns through them. Everything is free and it's just been kind of out there in the ether without ever being used for years and years and years. And so it's like, well, there's some really cool
004things that we can do. I shared some of them with um Mr. Brown and we got our good idea hats on like we sometimes do and that's where like the high five Fridays that we did last year and some of those things are part of this framework. Um and at that session then we I also won a door prize which happened to be like a intro welcome kit that kind of lays out some of the um things you can do and different resources that are available. I'll pass it around if you guys want to see. Um but so what what Josh's Renaissance is is the big thing to take away from it is that it's a framework for providing support to recognize and improve your school. um there's um it's not a program really. It
005takes a lot of the things that we're already doing but provides a little bit more structure to them. And I think that was one of the big takeaways from the conference that um that we were able to take away from is we're doing a lot of these things already but how can we do it a little bit more um cohesively and effectively. Um but it's been around for um almost 30 years but I think it's somewhat underutilized by a lot of schools. The overall intent is that you go to bed Sunday night and you are excited to get to school. Whether you're, you know, working in the school, you're a student in the school, you want to love Mondays, right? Um, Mr. Brown, you want to click to the next slide? Um, so one, you
006know, we looked at this, it's like this framework, as I said, that helps teachers and students love Mondays and the the goal is to support these different aspects of a holistic student. So academic achievement, character and leadership development, staffy is what they call staff and faculty. It's kind of a combination. Um it's everyone who works in a school is staffy, right? That will take some getting used to because when we busted that out, people really hate that word and it sounds a little dumb, but it is it's a big part of what they of what they're they're pushing for is that everyone is in this together. We're not staff and we're not faculty and we're not custodians. It's everyone together. Um and then behavior management and developing relationships. And so Mr. Brown and I looked
007at this and we're like, "Wow, there is some really good stuff." And it turns out there is a um conference that's held yearly. It's called the Global Renaissance Conference. And we met with our regional manager for Justins and he's like, you know, this if you can get a team to go to this, it really will be worth your time. Um and so we were able to um secure that trip. We put out an application to staff for people that were interested in being part of this and this was the awesome group that responded. Um, so if you want to click to the next slide, this is our REN team that went out to the global conference. One thing before I turn it over to you guys that my takeaway from the conference and I've been
008to quite a few conferences, coaches, clinics, things like that. This was the best conference I have ever been to. It was phenomenal. There were a lot of uh the sessions were also student led from schools from around the country that brought students to this conference and they presented on the things they're doing in their school and it's kind of it was kind of cool because I say all the time we have great kids at West Central and we do. It was pretty cool seeing the great kids from across the country. It was it was it was awesome. So I think is that anything I'm forgetting before I turn it over to you guys? >> Sounds great. >> All right. I personally think Mr. Wood stole my thunder, but >> I'm just kidding. So, I'm just
009going to explain a little bit more about what the JRGC um conference was. Um so, it's a conference where schools from all over the country and even Canada, there were some people from there. Um there was roughly 2,000 people there. Um 30% were students and 70% were staff. Um I'm going to give Mr. Brown low shout out here too. And I might be taking it from somebody else. I don't remember. But when we were at the airport coming home, we ran into a school that you'll hear about later. And um the principal asked Mr. Brown, they're like, "Well, what's your position?" He goes, "I'm superintendent." He's like, "Superintendent? They never come to this thing." So I think that's just a really big shout out to him that he's willing to implement this in our school,
010too. And he's willing to be there. So he knows when we do implement it, he like someone from the top is going to be supporting us and he's going to be willing to support us how he can. Um so um the JRGC locations change. So we were in San Diego this year. Um sometimes they go to the east coast. It kind of just depends from year to year where that is. Um but yeah, like Mr. Wood said, it is a really vibrant place to be there. It's exciting. You can tell that people are there to learn, um to help each other, to support each other. um just to make it a successful program or not program framework. >> Um and then as you'll see in the materials coming around to uh but the the six
011Rs there are are the Johnson's formula. Um and as you can see up there, the respect one we've been doing a great job with for a long time. We're going to continue that. Uh those other Rs up there that you see um recognizing hard work, doing all those good things. I think that's kind of the secret sauce that we can build up to continue to make WCA a great place to be. I think next slide. Uh, so our perspective, I know Mr. Wood already gave like what his takeaway was, but these were our takeaways from the JRGC conference as well. Um, I already kind of talked about the electric atmosphere that's there, but my favorite part and the part that gave me chills like for the first time being there was when we walked into
012the first rally and you could just see all the kids like standing up on their chairs and dancing and not caring what anyone's thinking of them. Um, and then staff was also doing that or staff was also doing that. So, it was just really cool to see like how everyone could come together and just make it a positive atmosphere to be around and it just shows how Justin's Renaissance can make that impact. Jesse and I are going to talk a little bit more about inspiring speakers as we go on, but yes, April kind of did steal my thunder a little bit. My story was going to be about the Air Force. So, I'm just going to tell it tell that story. That was going to be my little little story we were going to tell.
013Um, so as we were going back home, we we split into had to split into two different vehicles as we were traveling anywhere. So it was nice little competition between Mr. Brownlow and Mr. Wood who would use Lift and who would use Uber and which one would get to places faster. So at this moment it was uh the Ubers that won and I was with Mr. Brown low and Brida and we were at the airport and the other group got stuck in traffic and so we were just off standing and we were just letting everybody go through the line into the and you know get ready to go through the airport. We were and of course I've never met a stranger in my life. So everybody's going through and we're just I'm just chatting with
014everybody and we're just waiting and so this man comes through and a lady comes through and I'm not thinking anything of it and you know we got coats ready or sweaters or whatever and I see a little tag on her bag and a tag was if you were distinguished at the at the last meeting that we had last speaker and it's like oh you've got a tag and she's like oh you've got a shirt and then we start talking because we're all wearing our shirts the last day And all 2,000 of us, kids and everybody were wearing their shirts and and so um we start talking and I'm talking a little bit and and these two are talking a little bit and then it's just adults and there's lots of adults so didn't know who
015adult was which adults or whatever and we were talking about the conference and where you're from and then you know Wisconsin blah blah blah and then all of a sudden the kids come in and they're like wearing these big chains they had made and I remember I was like hey you guys were leading in one of my sessions and they're like, "Yeah, you know, woo." And they're all excited and and the other group hasn't quite come in yet. And so I'm talking with the kids that led the group and these guys are talking with the adults and we're still talking and and we're having a good time. And then these guys come and they kind of get in in our organization and this really really tall man comes in and gets in conversation like lady's
016like, "Yeah, it's his last year. He's done. He's retiring. he's going to do all this traveling and help schools out and whatever. And and then we get into this uh conversation and then he proceeds to um kind of April already said it. He proceeds to go into the conversation and say, "Well, well, I mean, how'd you get hooked up?" And then it goes into the story like she just said where he's they're like, "Well, who got you?" And it pointed to those two because Nate Nate was in the back. Mr. from those right there. And he's like, "What? Who got you going?" Um, our our principal and superintendent. Wait, what? You've got your superintendent here? And he's like, "Where? Where?" So, he seeks him out and they just gravitate. He goes, "I've been here so
017many years and this and that. I've been doing this. No superintendent's ever come to these things. This is crazy." So, they start chatting up and we're still chatting with the kids and whatever. And so I'm chatting with them at still and we're going through and some reason we had the same ticket or whatever. So we were next to each other, Mr. Brownlow and I. So we were last. So the three of us, this really tall guy and I were next to it. And I didn't recognize him because his kids were per um were doing the the class and they were talking about all their inspiring things they did for their school to get their kids involved and and so I didn't know who their speaker was, whatever. and he was talking about, oh yeah, my
018book, this and that and we got done and we were getting ready to go and they're like, okay, great. Good to see you. You know, nice to meet you, whatever. And I go, gosh, you know, I bought all these books at all these other places that I went to and all these great people that I did. I go, man, now I wish I would have bought your book. So, I'm sitting there and I'm still checking in. The guy goes over and he comes over and he goes, "Hey, here you go. Here's my book. I'd like to give it to you." And he just hands me his book. And for some reason, I got so emotional. I started to like tear up because here's this guy doesn't know me from anyway except for we talked about
019it. And then Mr. Brown made the connection. And from there, >> well, I went to his presentation and he had talked about the golden card. So, their school wants to stand out and I've got his card. So, we're ready to go. Beginning to wonder though, if I was the only superintendent may there, maybe I wasn't supposed to be smarter than I was, but uh yeah, so I think it's a great we'll be able to reach out and see and and so that's what we're working on is our branding as well. We're not going to be the Golden Cardinal by any means, but we'll have some things. >> So, just that little connection at the airport has made a big connection for our community. So, that was my my quick that's a little quick story we
020have for you. Um yeah, I would say uh of course we've built lots of connections amongst our group working together, too. Um just made us really excited to roll up our sleeves and work hard together. Um and we had we've had some work days since then and and days went really fast and they're fun. Um and just very excited to share that excitement with staff and continue to build those connections and hopefully hopefully maybe even be sending more staff in the future to the Justin's conference because it's very worthwhile. >> So um a big take away from me was I'm going to kind of say something Mr. Wood said too going into it and I was very excited like oo this is a big deal our district is investing in this but also a little
021skeptical like okay why who is selling it who is doing this and so getting to actually hear from a bunch of other districts hearing from principals hearing from I heard from a special ed teacher in New Jersey um high school students presented from Pennsylvania so hearing a lot from all of these other schools across the country who are using the framework and who really, you know, there are educators who are passionate about education, but educators and students who love their schools. And I think that's that was my biggest thing, like this could be us. We could be here. We could be presenting. We could have students come here. And going off again what everybody else has said, we have a lot of things in place. We're just going to kind of It feels like this
022is the piece of the puzzle that we've been missing. I think it's so we had at the conference I just mentioned like going to some of the sessions. I wish I would have done the math to figure out because we really took a divide and conquer approach. So I think maybe we ended up in one session together but how many would we each have gone to like at least five? >> Yes. But just the makeup of the conference, we have tons of different breakout sessions, but also the big general sessions. Does it say number five? >> Yes. >> So, we had what, three different keynote speakers. Um, PC that you mentioned, PC and friends, Keith Hawkins, I'm forgetting the first one. He was good, too. They were all wonderful. Very inspiring, very like made you
023want to get up and go, "Okay, now yeah, I want to bring this back." Just the excitement, the inspiration. Um, I think maybe I can speak for all of us in saying our favorite general session was the REN talks where we heard from a couple of principles, I think a teacher and a high school student who stood up in front of these 2,000 people and talked about her school experience. And I think all of us could see, you know, we're thinking of kids from our community that were like, "Oh, that that's her." Like, this is her. She's she had a lot of adversity in her life and some of the different things that her school did helped get her to that place where she she was phenomenal. I think not like a dry eye in
024the house after she spoke because it was just so impactful and she just I don't know she just rocked it and we kind of made you want to step up in your own way as a teacher, as principal, superintendent, as a district. Like what can we do to give back to our communities in that way? >> Great. Um, and then the breakout sessions, um, as as Brit said, we went to a whole bunch of different ones and, um, would have been nice if the conference was a couple days longer so we could just go to them all. Um, but that was the breakout sessions I feel like was where we found out what do we actually do? Um, there's all this excitement, but how do you actually do this? What do you do when you
025get home? Um, and so Joins has put together a monthly playbook. That's a really nice place to start. Um, because you get this many ideas and you can't do them all. So you have to have a starting point. um and that's being passed around there. Uh so that'll be a really nice framework for us to start with. Um but uh the the very first breakout session I went to um was an optional before breakfast session because I'm a morning person. And um even just from that um even just optional sessions had pages and pages of notes. Um things like and again these are just a couple ideas. We're still whittling things down, but things like having your seniors call the incoming freshman to welcome them to school or uh classroom explosions where there's a knock
026on the door and your admin or someone comes in and says, "Hey, this kid right here got their highest uh score on a test or quiz ever this week, so we have treats for the class." Um things that really build up that recognition and reward uh that are not huge budgetary items, um but do that recognition and reward. Um, one of the things that they mentioned was bag awards, behavior attendance grades. And um, if all our students are doing behavior attendance grades, great and are buying into that, like just just think of how that will continue to elevate our school. So, we're really excited to bring these ideas to WCA and have a framework to start with that. >> Um, and these are some of our ideas that we got from sessions, too. So that's
027why we hung up the poster so you could see like that's a lot and that's why we were kind of overwhelmed with stuff but um what they always told us is like choose like two or three things that you want to implement and I like we've have said we are doing some of these things already but then how do you do it in an intentional way um the last thing um was the awards gala and I was we were all very tired at this point we're like do we really want to go to this gala like we're not going to be recognized blah blah blah whatever but we went and I would say that that was a very insp inspiring time to be there because you could see all the schools, everyone dressed very fancy.
028Um, and this is where they give awards to schools of distinction. So, um, if you implement certain things from the Josson's Renaissance program and you can prove that you have had success and you met your goals, you can become a school of distinction. And they have many different tiers. I think there's like a silver and a gold >> and we're silver. Um, they also acknowledge Justin's Renaissance Educators of the Year and Hall of Fame. Um, and what we kind of took away from that is like we can do that. Like if we do things this year, like we can go to the conference next year and we could be up there. Like our school could be up there, which was really cool and inspiring. All right. So, some takeaways or three important things that we
029learned is that obviously this is a program a framework sorry um to help us stay student focused. So, what's best for kids? Um we're really it comes naturally to us to acknowledge people and kids that are in sports. Like that's just what comes naturally. But what this framework also helps is like how can we help acknowledge and recognize those kids that are here every single day that aren't in sports or they're not in any extracurriculars. Um I had a student this past year say to me, he goes, "I have not missed a day. Do you think I'm going to get something for them?" I'm like, "I don't know." But now this year I can say, "Yes, we are going to give you something this year." Um uh focusing on kids that have good character. So
030we do like student of the month and stuff like that, but maybe focusing on more characteristic traits when we give those student of the month awards out. And then just obviously highlighting all those positive things that students are doing in the classroom, out of the classroom, in extracurriculars, not in extracurriculars. The staffy climate and culture that was really big. Um just so many different ways that we can talk about our staffy and celebrate them as well and want them to be just as happy to come on Monday as well. Um we have a lot of ideas of how we can do that. We're going to do a little staff cart and bring them a little treat around the room. Have the kids help out with that and have them fill out a little card. um
031so many things besides that, but just to help boost some morale and um just get that excitement going. Hopefully we can get more staff members involved in this and we're going to start out by that first day and it's going to be awesome and great and they're going to Mr. Brownlow is gonna I don't know wear a banana suit or something. I'm not sure. He's gonna jump around. Oh, that was me. Oh, that's right. Um he's there Mr. wood. Who knows what he is going to wear, but I mean, we're just going to come in. It's going to that first um I'm talking workshop day, by the way, too. But we're just going to come in. We're going to play it. We're just going to go for it. We want them to be as excited
032as we are when we come in and show them that we've we've bought in to this and we want them to buy in and we want them to come as happy that first day of school as we have and show them exactly that we're going to do this all year. and we are ready to go. >> Yeah, I don't know if I have too much to add to that, but just that again we have a lot of ideas. The the notes up there were from like pages and pages of notes where you thought, okay, what did I even hear again? And I'm so glad we took notes. Well, um but one thing in one session I went to, they said, "Okay, so we this district, it was a charter school in Arizona, an elementary charter
033school, and they said we had these goals for students. um it was a specific attendance thing and then they wanted to incentivize that you know you get a certificate you get your name if you were there all quarter something along those lines and they said we didn't do anything with our staffy but just by recognizing students we noticed our attendance was even better with our staff as well and so just seeing how like one there's give and take and improving both is just it kind of goes together goes hand in hand um yeah but I guess I thought too I'm like we can't say too much because we don't want to get >> that's I know that's why I was like I got to bite my tongue I know bite my tongue I'm not saying
034any more than three but >> um yes and and schools also said if they focus on their attendance their academics follow too which was great um and then um our final big takeaway is starting small and they said that in just about every session like pick three things pick three things to focus on the year you can't do 25 um so start small um and I went to several getting started sessions and everyone I thought oh well we're we're kind going to be on the getting started. We're building now. Um so we have some focuses for the year and we're really excited to get underway. >> Oh, student recogni um just recognizing students in general. Um, April kind of talked about this a little bit too that we want to do our best to recognize
035students that I mean we do a really good job of recognizing our athletic students and I mean athletics is a huge part of my life. My student my own children were in athletics and that was we recognize them all the time and I appreciate that and I love that. We also want to make sure that we're representing all the areas of the arts and attendance and a and academics. So, we put together some plans to make sure that that happens as well. Um, you will be seeing that. I will not let that flip about those. Um, but we have a good plan in place for that. And, um, I had actually started a little bit for the fine arts stuff way before this even came into place. Started that. that so it' be in place
036for this year for fine arts just being the music teacher um which will kind of just roll over into this year along with some other stuff. And so I think um up here in the secondary level uh we've got a hopefully a good plan started for that um that we've talked about amongst oursel, Mr. Wood and myself. Um and hopefully we can have three neat things going at least starting this year for that. Um again for even things like attendance and that kind of stuff um just really important to recognize every part in the aspect of all the good things that we do in our school as well. Going back to that staffy culture and climate. Um, I think the biggest thing with that is that we all came away and we see how important
037it is that we want ourselves, we want our colleagues to love working here. And we're ready to do a little bit of the heavy lifting to say, "Hey, we want this so badly for our district. Our board believes in it. Our administrators believe in it. and we're going to get this framework really rolling so that everybody feels that energy and is proud to say I work at West Central area. We're the Knights. And um another thing, we have a pretty specific goal here. So with the um survey that we took in the spring, we we spent quite a bit of time looking over the results of that and you know heard a little bit of everything, but definitely seeing that we have spaces we can improve upon. And one of our goals is that when
038we do a survey, I don't know if it'll be the exact same. >> I'm not sure they're similar though. >> We'll do another survey, I assume, at the end of the next this next school year. And we have certain areas that we want to move people specifically from saying, "Well, I'm neutral. I don't really know if we're doing this well. I don't know if we're not doing it well. I'm just floating in the middle." We want to take those neutrals and say, "Hey, we agree we're doing this. We agree this is going well." And really getting everything out there, great communication, and great followth through. And then our last goal that we have too is I kind of already talked about it for the awards gala. um just being becoming a school of distinction and
039we could reach that silver status with some of the things that we're already doing and how we can implement some things a little bit more intentionally too. >> And to clarify, I don't think we can get gold or platinum until after. You can't do it your first year. So otherwise, this team here was ready to go. So I don't want you to think that we're just going for last place. We're we're going for the high level. But >> well, maybe I get to be the bookend book end. So I get to wrap it up. We spent a lot of time thinking about a theme for this coming year. quite a few school districts um really embraced the the theme to say how are we all coming together? How do we all rally around um a
040common goal? And so our theme we came up with was stronger together. Hence our um we think that's our best picture to our picture. So, um, the theme this year that you'll see us talking about and our staff and we're going to, um, really be that stronger together theme. And I just can't say enough about this team that just presented. Um, when we were together, the energy, the excitement, I'm kind of a rahrh person, so I love this stuff. Um, and but just seeing um, this team come together and come back after, I'm just so excited. this is such a a great place to be. I'm so proud of the work that they're doing and the work that we are going to be doing this school year. Um and just thankful for us to be
041on this direction. And I really think um yeah, we have some good stuff coming coming your way this school year coming towards um coming into um present to the staff. So we're stronger together and we are headed in an awesome direction. >> Any questions for us? >> So this this team This team is here now. You guys going to meet like every week or something? >> Yeah. I mean, we're meeting Friday again already. Now, it is still fine tune some stuff for the start of the school year and then we'll meet as needed throughout the school year. >> And the goal is to add a student team as well. Um, so that obviously we can't do till school starts, but we're going to find a a a method of selecting some students to be a
042part of this as well. And then one of the keynote speakers will be in at St. Ben's in February. And the goal is to take a group of students and staff to that speaker. Better than good is his tagline. He's really good. >> He's better than >> And eventually, I think one of our other goals is because there's not a whole lot of schools in this region doing some of this work. So, we want to be that regional star that people come to our school as well to see what we're doing. I know one of the speakers, Phil. Phil Phil was there was the other speaker, right? I think he just said you can tell when you walk into a building that there's a difference and that's what we want here. And I think um
043PC comes out, we'd like to have a hold the regional conference here for him to come to our school and invite other schools. And I think the thing that I'll tell you exciting about our staff is is the fact that the conference was Friday through Monday. There's no compensation. They're here this morning without compensation. they're excited about this and I really think that's great great work and so I think coming back to you to report on a quarterly basis to say here's where we're at here's our goals here's our measurables I think that's what some of us have been waiting for for a while and so we'll be able to bring that back to say here's attendance here's academic achievement here's the other pieces that are there and hopefully when you we'd love to have
044you come through our buildings and just so we can show you some of those things as well during the day to say hey we'd like to see this and I think you're going to see some real um awesome some opportunities. I got to tell you, taking that picture there was a little intimidating standing next to muscles. I don't know why I picked that side. And then when they said we're going to flex, I'm like, what? Why are we going to do that? So, yeah, that's uh yeah. So, but uh no, I think there's just and I think the critical point is also that our students aren't here. And we got and we already got some team members, I think, going. we met a couple days ago um for the branding piece and the two students
045that were on that team. >> They might be they might have been the smartest two people in that group that and we have a lot of great people that were there, but I'm just excited to see what our kids can bring and hopefully you'll see a change. Hopefully our staff will see a change. I recognize it in the welcome back to school letter. And so I think it's just going to be one of those pieces that we'll be able to move forward and and there's going to be a feeling here after a while to say yep, this is what we're going to do. And I think also building on to this REN team here with more staff and because we're going to have to spread that work out and things like that. But as you
046hear they keep saying three things, keep it small. That's going to have to be our reminder all the time because as you hear they've got I don't think there's just three things. I think it's three times three times three. So of that. So how do we come out just to make sure and that there's follow through that we don't start something. Often times schools are known for starting initiatives and then they don't. And at the end of the year, people are going to say, "Well, we started here. It was great, but what happened in January?" And we want to make sure that that goes and hopefully the board will see that excellent work. And and I guess the other thing that I think was meant to be is everybody here got to go for free.
047So that budget that I shared with you to say what was going to happen actually um Josh's allowed us all to go for free. So it and then I know some of the rooms I think there were some rooms that were not on the beautiful side of the resort. So those came in at half price. So they >> very That's right. So So I think there's just going to be a lot of great things and hopefully in January we say here's where we're at. We'd like to send another team because I think this needs to be an ongoing piece. I think some of the schools, not that we'll ever be able to get to this, but we're sending 15 kids and 15 adults. And so we eventually want to be able to to have kids
048go to this as well to get that excitement and just have it that eventually who we are is Joson's Renaissance. >> And there's not too many schools in Minnesota that participate in this. Um Brainer, um Grand Rapids, >> Biji. >> Yep. Bamiji. >> And Johnson's is a Minnesota company. >> They are they're based in Bloomington. Um but as a school of distinction, there are no Minnesota schools. So we won't >> I don't think we could be the first one. So you make any connection with people from other schools that you feel like you'll continue to communicate with throughout >> I would say like the presenters and stuff were very open like here's my email me if you have any questions or here's my cell number like they were very open and like willing to help
049so I think within all of us we're going to have connections >> and there's a a Facebook like for our region there's a Facebook page that you can join and then people post ideas and then there's also like a in Within the Johnson's Renaissance site, there's an idea exchange where people, it's like a forum where people post ideas. Hey, we're doing this or I have a question. How do I do this? And you can kind of get answers on there, which is super helpful, too. >> Yeah, I already emailed one of the presenters. I have ideas brewing. So, I we've been emailing back and forth. So, make a good connection. >> I think that's very important. >> Yeah. 25 years. I think one of the biggest things that comes out of them sometimes is connection
050you may physical people that you can call >> that are doing the same >> maybe not just in your region but >> I feel like that was something I was actually going to say about going to these sessions is just what April said every session we went to here's our email follow us here go do this and I've been to not a ton but other educational conferences and never had that experience so that was something that was very Everyone was so open like we want everyone to have this. >> I'd encourage you to keep those going. >> Any other questions, comments? >> Well, I don't know if you The best part is at the first rally, Jake has to dress up as Dr. Doom. He doesn't know that, but I thought we were going to
051change culture here. >> All right, we'll move on then. Um Darren, you had a quick update on the sign committee. Yeah, we met um just going back there some parents that um brought up the idea of of getting a sign on school property of the state championship sign like a 10 foot pretty good size, not quite as big as a billboard, but pretty good size sign. So board wanted a committee to meet. So Jake and myself and Marine Dis and Brandy Gro and Amy Staples met yesterday um to discuss some things and and Jake did some good research prior to um prior to the meeting with what other schools have done in the past and there was just a lot of in having the discussion and we knew this was kind of why the committee
052was formed. So it was a good deal but just to talk about what are the challenges of okay well what about the next team how far back do we go do we do section titles do we do you know if somebody wants to do that and um so after having that discussion as it pertains to the sign and the sign itself we kind of we kind of all thought that you know something like this maybe shouldn't be on school property and it should be maybe done privately and which is what all other schools are doing. Um just to kind of alleviate some of them whatifs and what do we do and that way you know whatever organization it is whether athletics or arts or anything they can kind of all do their own thing whatever
053they want they just figure out where it's going to be put to work in things like that. So from a recommendation standpoint that's kind of what we came came about and was yeah, we think it's a great thing. Um, but maybe it should be, you know, whether it's on the interstate or on a county road or in a city or whatever, that maybe the way it should go and that's probably the way it should be funded. Um, but that being said, there were some ideas that came up about, well, what about a banner? You know how we put team banners in there? Maybe for a season or whatever we have a banner hanging up in the gym. Maybe they unveil it at the first home game and it hangs up there. Um and then just
054some other it kind of led into um Jake brought up a lot well, you know, are we what can we do more to recognize some of these things? Like should we continue to meet to see if there's ways that we can recognize our athletes and the you know, speech, arts, everything. And how do we do that inside the school framework of, you know, record, you know, records even for the record to be up on the wall? Do we have a hall of fame? Um, we never made any of those decisions. It just was like, well, should we keep meeting, you know, to try and continue stuff? was like Jake had made a comment that TA had kind of talked, you know, back in the day about a hall of fame type of thing and it
055was sitting in a in a desk drawer and u so we're we kind of were all I think on the same page that we should continue to go so it doesn't sit in the desk. Let's get it out and see if we can find ways to to do those things. So there was there was some sad part about not putting on school ground, but there was a lot of positives. I think there's a lot of meaning, too. So, you got anything? >> Yeah, I I would just add to Darren's points, we were all for recognition. I mean, it even though the the discussion ended up not on school property, I think we all agree to recognize that accomplishment is great and future accomplishments would be great. Um but yeah, it it really led down some
056other paths that maybe how can we recognize some of our champions, our our other um our academics, our FFA, our FCCLA when we had that um speech. We have two AAA award winners, you know, and and what does that look like to recognize them and and how can we do that? Um what is what does a possible hall of fame look like? We talked about P. I mean there's a folder with just a couple documents in there and my assumption is that was started right before he passed away. So I mean there there could be some work there. So I I mean I I think the discussion leads to some future discussions of what does this look like? It's not something that's going to be solved next week or next month. Um but it's going
057to take some time to put some of these pieces together. And maybe this signage discussion maybe brought us down a path that hey let's let's look at something more. some other pieces we can do here in the building as well. So, >> I know we've had previous discussions and you know the one is easy, right? It's always, you know, we know we can put a sign up for this team, but when you think about the grand scheme of things, it's more than just one. You know, we don't we don't know how many it's going to be and and it's hard to plan ahead for that. We hope that you know obviously this isn't obviously it's a first but we hope it's one of many you know going forward and and then how do you fit
058you know if you take the prime spot then everybody else gets a secondary spot and how you know how do you keep that fair you know >> you brought up the HK football championship what do we do about that right so >> so yeah >> no it was it was good a lot of good discussion >> so yeah questions comments anyone on that >> so you you guys will continue to work and then bring that back to the board at certain times throughout the year. >> I think we kind of >> I guess our recommendation for this specific task of of the state championship sign our recommendation whether not probably not on school project. >> Okay. >> So I don't know if we need to take action on that at all. I don't think so.
059Um, but I think I think everybody involved does want to continue to have some communications about where we go from here with the other things that we recognize. >> And I don't know if we can give you a timeline when we'll come back to as we report on that. Okay. >> But we're going to kind of let some ideas marinate a little bit and and revisit down the road. So, >> well, it kind of aligns just with what we heard right with our Just piece about recognition. So, and I think just having that framework set, I think that was the big conversation last time was that included everybody, right? We couldn't it just couldn't be athletics because we have some kids that are outside of athletics that are also high high achievers and so how
060do we do that? So, I think it's a great process. So, thanks for starting that. An example would be that I brought up last night is, you know, there's a lot of girls basketball or whatnot, you know, especially in that probably seventh, eighth grade, you know, like Macy coming up, like she didn't she probably had no idea how good athlete Naomi was. You know, she was a very very good athlete and you know, if there was something on the wall, you know, who knows, you know, life, you know, she ends up around here coaching or whatever, you know, and you get 20, 30 years down the road, you know, people don't without that recognition and they're not those type of people aren't going to say it themselves how good they were, but you know, when
061the writing's on the wall, people get to see that, you know, it maybe makes you listen a little bit more to that coach or, hey, they know what they're doing, you know, they did it. All right. Um, one more just committee. I know Claire reached out to me about um, we're starting this conversation. It'll come up more as we start to talk about our facilities planning and that sort of thing, but um, we used to have a PR committee that met pretty regularly. Um, and so as we move forward with whatever the plan we move forward with, um, we probably need to start having more consistent meetings with that group just to look at how, you know, how this information is put out, how it's, um, how we use that committee as a as more
062of a working unit than just a committee that's been sitting kind of on the back burner for a while. It probably ties into our Justins and all those things together. As we're talking about branding, we're talking about all those things that that's a committee, a board committee that really could be utilized a lot better than probably it has over the last couple of years. And so as we look going forward, you know, that just might be one of those pieces that we um see more committee meetings coming out of that group um with probably more regular updates to the board with how things are going, what the plan is moving forward communications wise and and uh things like that. So, um, just a heads up, I can't do you remember >> public engagement committee is,
063uh, Kayla Sandstead, Claire Vincent, and Josh Olrich. >> Okay. >> Are the three members on the public? >> Just so you guys are forewarned, you got a bunch of work to do coming up. Okay. >> He knew it wasn't him, so he felt it was safe. >> I'm like, "Yeah, let's get this let's get these people going." Um, so any but it ties into everything we've talked about so far this morning and it'll be a big piece as we move forward with whatever we move forward facilities wise as well that we make sure we communicate those things well going forward. So um we will move into uh administrative reports. Miss Hendricks, you start. >> Yes. Um well actually I'm going to turn it over to Luke. He is our I know we got to meet
064a few of you as he came in this morning. So I'll let him introduce himself. He is our new dean of students at the elementary level. >> I'm Luke Ryan. I grew up in Olivia, Minnesota. I went to Bold High School. Um, I went to I know not a great thing, but I went to UMD. I got a degree in physical education and adaptive. When I was in school, I decided I want to work in foster care. And I worked my way up to a crisis coordinator. I had my own crisis team. I did that for a little bit. And I just realized that I wanted to be in a school. So I went back and I taught at Stella Mars Academy. I taught by Ed for a year and then my fiance and I
065decided that we want to move back closer to home a little bit not too close to my parents but a little bit further away. And so we came down here started look for jobs and I thought what a perfect position. I still get to work with behavioral students but I'm also in a school so I'm excited. >> Yeah. Welcome. >> Yeah, we're really excited to have him especially with his experience in the crisis coordinator position with um that behavioral piece. it'll be really good to bring him on and some good energy and ideas. So, him and I are going to work today after um after our board meeting. So, excited to have him on board. Um some other updates, we have summer school running at both sites this summer. So, um Chelsea Sutherland is our
066teacher at North and then um Heather Westby is helping out with that as well. So, after that, um came up after I had already submitted my report. So Heather Westby and Chelsea are running summer school at North and then Carrie Ben and Kathleen Moore, our splitting time at South. Um so they will be doing some enriching activities just to get the give those kids a little boost over the summer. We have teachers attending letters training. So we are on year two. They have attended two days. I think today is the last day of the um of the second session. So after today, our teachers will have their summer sessions done and then Jod will continue with her trainings over the school year and then we um I think by the end of the year we'll
067be wrapped up with our letters. We had yesterday a really great team attend um it's called PTR, prevent, teach, reinforce. Uh Luke and I were both at that. We went to um through it was through Lakes Country Service Cooperative in Fergus and really around how do you pre-teach or um put in interventions in place to prevent behavior? How do you um teach into something you if you're trying to negate or change a behavior, how do you teach into switching that and and then um reinforce those positives? So, we had a like I said a great team from SouthGo. We are really excited to we already have some ideas brewing, but to get our um we'll probably talk a little bit more about that today just to get our minds wrapped around it and then put
068that into place this school year will be really good. Both Tony and Danielle started on Monday. So, um we've been attending the JMC trainings over the summer. We're working on getting our welcome information up and so we can get it out to families. We were hoping to do some of our registration or re-registration paperwork electronically. I think we decided that this year um we might have to just take a pause and continue to do any paperwork that we did um have parents do that and then next year we'll try to get that. It was just a lot in a short amount of time to try to get all of that up um digitally, but we have well for sure for next school year. And then we have early entrance conferences as um in our welcome
069week, so our workshop week. So it's just coming up really quickly as well. So, we're excited to have that so we can um do those early entrance conferences and then get um get parents and kids back in the building. And then the buildings looking buildings are both looking great. Thank you to our custodial staff. Everything's moving along, looking really amazing in the buildings. On Monday, there are teachers from both North and South K through four. So, all the grade levels coming together. We're going to do some rubric rubric work and assessment alignment. due to the new ELA standards that are implement the implementation is starting this year and we needed to do some then rework on our report cards as our assessments and our rubrics weren't necessar necessarily aligned to our new um the new
070ELA standards. So we're coming together on Monday to do some work with that and then I'm just excited to be back. you know, we we love Monday, so even though we're it's Wednesday, we're wearing our Monday shirts, but um it was great to to start back on Monday, um having, you know, a little bit of time in July with family and we have a great team and I'm just so excited to be here and I just am really the um positive about a great school year to come. So, thanks for your support, especially with with everything, but the the Justins renaissance being willing to send a team to that. It really will have some positive things going into the school year. So, thank you. Any questions for me at all? >> Thank you. >> Okay,
071>> Mr. Wood. Alrighty. Um, first, like Caitlyn said, um, big thank you to Chad and the custodial staff for our their hard work this summer on our buildings. They they've really uh done a great job. Also, thank you to Kevin and Stacy on the tech side um getting our Chromebooks and teacher laptops ready. Um, so we're everything is ready and organized to start the school year. We talked quite a bit about just already. The one piece that Mr. Brown briefly touched on, but I wanted to elaborate on a little bit is um this concept of our identity. So it's, you know, the one of the parts of this is figuring out what does it mean to be a knight, right? where we have this we have great branding, we've got a great logo, we have
072um really good things going, but when someone hears West Central Area Knight, what does that mean? And so we met earlier this week to try and um come up with some ideas. That's where um we had some student participation that was fantastic um and did some really good work on on coming up with this idea of all right, this is what represents West Central Area Knights as an identity. Um and then kind of building that into our brand. Um, so work is work is continuing on that piece. Um, but also it was it was a super engaging meeting. I thought it was um well worth the time we spent. So, and then on the system side, like uh Caitlyn said, we're transitioning to JMC from Synergy. Um, this is a huge transition. We're very grateful
073for our office staff and counselors who have gone above and beyond this um summer to prepare. Um we're still working on things um and you know we there's a lot that has to happen um in order to be ready for the start of the school year, but we're getting there. Um other things, so we're making a few tweaks to our cell phone policy. I think the um biggest thing to understand from this is we're just taking our policy from last year and we are adding a consistent piece of what do you do with your phone? Um and so we're ordering the like the hanging wall um pouches and instead of the teacher deciding, all right, you can have your phone on your desk, but it's got to be face down or you have it in
074your pocket or you have in your backpack, it is going to be the same and consistent in every classroom. Students can still have their phones during passing time and lunch. But I think the big thing is teaching responsible use where we're disciplined enough right now to have our phones sitting on our table. Everyone does, right? And we're not on it scrolling right now. That's really hard for students. So, how do we build that skill so that as they, you know, become older, then they have that skill to to be responsible with their cell phones? And one thing we heard from staff is it was really hard last year when it was up to the teacher because then you have this inconsistency of well in so- and so's classroom I can do this but in this
075classroom I do this. So we're trying to kind of make that a little bit more uniform across the board. Other than that everything is the same. The consequences are the same as what we had in place last year. And then like Caitlyn said early entrance conferences are it's a little bit different. They're earlier this year. So, it's early early entrance conferences and uh this is always a really good time to get the school year off on the right foot. Kind of work out some of the kinks before the students get here and um you know provide students can get their Chromebooks, get get set up, be ready to go for the school year. So, I guess that is what I have. Any questions? >> Thank you, Mr. Wood, Mr. Fosene. >> All right. Um been
076a busy summer in the activities office. We've had lots of things going on. Um you'll you'll get a GoPran presentation later on in the agenda. I've sent Mr. Brownlow a couple recommendations for negotiations for Knowledge Bowl and BPA. We had our 712 coaches meeting here on Monday. We had 27 coaches in attendance, which was probably our high pretty if I go back and look. I know it was more than last year, but it's got to be pretty close to our our top number. Uh we also had our our all sport meeting Monday night. Um I thought attendance there maybe could have been a little bit more. Um but it was still uh fairly well attended by our public. Fall practices feels like we just talked about spring practices not too long ago. Uh fall practices
077start Monday uh for all activities. There are some junior high practices that will start the following Monday on August 18th. So, we have I shouldn't say we, Kevin has installed some new huddle cameras for us. Um, thank you Kevin for doing that. We can now stream on court 3 on the auxiliary court. Albeit it's a different view. It's an endpoint view. It's not the perpendicular view that we have on the main court. Um, we can >> Can I add one thing to that? >> Yep. Sure. >> Those ones are fixed view. So, they do not zoom and track. They're not artificial intelligent equipped cameras. They are just static cameras >> and we we've put that one on court 3 and on the end of the main court as well and we have also installed a
078huddle camera in the auditorium so we can stream uh things in the auditorium as well. Um another change that that happened this summer um I changed some sponsorship levels and other details with our corporate program um added the option for sponsorship on Huddle as well. Um, I've been working with InstaPrints and Alec to streamline banners and logos. It's been a little daunting. Um, but Cody and I over there are making progress. There's a whole backstory to that and I I can tell you that if you want to know the backstory individually. Um, looking to complete that dugout project. I know you drive up and still see the dugouts there. We'll get to that. We just had plenty of other things go on. So, we'll our hope is sometime in August and September we can get
079those done in place uh here before the snow flies. Diamond Doctor is supposed to come and do some work on our fields if they ever dry out. He had contacted me this week to come Thursday, Friday. Well, right now I don't think Thursday, Friday are going to be options to do some work on our home plate and and pitchers areas on our fields. Uh had a state high school league board of directors retreat July 27th through 29th. Um that that's that's a daunting and and exciting opportunity to be a part of. um that that will be a four-year term and looking forward to helping our our schools and our state and our region being a part of that uh committee. A couple other events uh things that are going on. We have a conference meeting
080later on today uh at Minowaska and I I I know one of our big topics we're going to discuss is nth grade governance and there's a whole spiel with that and really that's that now says that ninth graders are incorporated in the state high school league and when you move junior high kids up they're up they can't come back down and it'll be kind of a piece we all weigh through what that all looks like and what that impact is. Um there's a fall meeting that we have to attend for ads for the state high school league on Monday, September 8th. Uh school pictures is the week of September 15th. I'm working with Amanda Becker. Again, uh the schedule's going to change a little bit than what we've had in the past and she's still
081ironing out those details. Uh that'll be communicated to Tony, Danny, and Mindy and Amanda in the office. And homecoming week is the end of September, September 29th through October 3rd. So, >> probably a longer report than what I >> I'm coming already. All right. >> Yeah, it's going to be early. >> Any questions for Mr. Fosene? >> Luke, can you do me a favor? Can you pass that? Chad changed it up on me normally. He said, "Can you pass that down to Chad?" Actually, >> sorry. >> All right. He threw me off. >> Did you want to touch on anything for community ed, Mr. Brown? >> I can do that. So, yeah, we're just grateful for April Richard. She's been our interim here for July and August. Done a great job to make sure everything's
082been taken care of and running smoothly. You see kind of what she wrote as her report. We will get that posted to fill that community position. Right now, I'm looking at probably 20 hours a month and roughly $30 an hour. So, $600 a month. So, over the course of the 12 months would be about $7,200 to take care of that. Um it would just mainly be the organization really that more administrative side of things because we do also um look to have a plan to have a district office administrative assistant. Remember a few years ago we had that person that helped um the district office superintendent work as well as the um community ed. So that person will do all the clerical work getting things taken care of and then so those pieces should be
083able to come together there. So, we'll get that posted probably internally internally with staff to see if there's any interest that way. Um, because I know I've already had one teacher reach out and say, "Hey, my STEM classes, who do I reach out to? How do I get this organized?" So, I know we got to get that done sooner than later. Uh, so we'll do that. Plus, we have the adult volleyball league coming up, ski day or ski stuff coming up. So, that'll start to ramp up and we just want to make sure that we're ready to go. So, uh, you'll see a couple of those job postings or I guess that's my recommendation is to put out for that. community ed is just a stipened position for this year to see how that goes.
084Um since we did break that off the dean of students role and then uh kind of go from there uh to get that set and like I said hopefully we'll be able to bring back some information to for what that district office position or who that would be um at the next board meeting. So she had lots of things still going on. Megan had it all set up before she left, but April's done a nice job of making sure that it flowed smoothly and that there wasn't any major hiccups for the summer wreck or community ed programs. Perfect. That brings us to technology. Wonderful world. >> All right. Um I need to start off by saying a huge thank you to Stacy and all the work she has done. Normally I wrap up with that.
085However, I feel as though it is important to start with that because the pieces we've been able to accomplish this year would not have happened without the expertise and hard work that she has provided the district. So, because of her, we'll actually be able to start school. I was considering pulling the plug, but she took the she got us over the hill. So, I appreciate that. Um, uh, couple system upgrades we have this year. We're we're adding some additional backup storage for a um third layer of security. So, a lot of our data pieces are backed up to different cloud sources. Um I added a uh onsite physical storage as a backup as well just to provide us that extra uh piece of mind. It's always good to have kind of those three different options
086because if there were a like crypto lock or something like that that comes in and locks down everybody's data, which is very common right now amongst public entities, um mostly like municipals and stuff like that, but you lose all of your data and it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to gain access to it back. sometimes you never gain access to it back and you have to recreate everything. So, um very small investments that could potentially make us a huge um be a huge benefit for us. Hopefully, we never have to use it. Um kind of a lot of the technology system upgrades as far as like access points, efficiencies, all of those pieces, a lot of those things go completely unnoticed. And that's the goal when it comes to technology. If you notice
087and recognize the technology, it's usually because there's issues. If you don't recognize that there's any changes to the technology, it just works, then that's a good thing. Um, we are reducing some of the licensings that we've had that we aren't utilizing to the maximum. It'll be a progress that we'll continue to look at and evaluate every single year, but we found that we've had some pieces in place for since I've been here um in 2015 that just aren't being used um the way they should be and we have other pieces in place that can more than cover the um the value that they are bringing to the classroom. Um ultimately the the return on investment when it comes to education technology is how does it positively impact the students? How does it positively impact the
088teachers? Instructions number one. Uh efficiencies number two. Um device upgrades. We have teachers got refurbished laptops this year. Um that continues to be our best uh return on investment or bang for our buck. We are generally getting laptops for about 30 to 40% of what they would cost new. Um, and they're still covered full uh Excel damage protection for four years, which is the important part. Um, printing changes. Have not talked to Paul about this one yet. Sorry. Um, we improved our overages from last year by about $3,000. We still have quite a bit of overage in our printing. Um I sat down with uh Liberty print Liberty Business Systems and reviewed our contracts. One of the issues we have is we are not using the full contract for black and white printing. Our color
089printing is where we're getting our overages. So, I restructured some of our contract to reduce the black and white to closer mirror where we've where our usage has been the last few years. And I increased our uh color printing so that it slightly reduces the cost when we kind of include it into our contract versus paying overages. Um, we do have some changes that are coming with uh paper cut uh to the to help reduce the unintentional color printing. Sometimes people print a packet and it has a small amount of color on it and you get charged the just about seven cents per page instead of the 7/10 of a cent per page if it were black and white. Um, the other big pieces that we have that's kind of couple years down the road
090is there's new commercialrade printing options. Uh, we've kind of used there there's kind of been three or four major players and top years. There's now significantly more and they all uh have lower printing costs than what the traditional ones are. So potentially we have two school years left in our current contract, but at the end of that we have the potential to significantly reduce our printing costs almost by half, which would be a big change. Um, and then I just wanted to talk about JMC just because we I don't know that we've really dove into the why and what of JMC. So with JMC, we are replacing Synergy. Synergy is our student information system. Synergy has been um we moved to Synergy in 201617 I believe um when TAI down in the cities was going
091under. So we jumped off of Tai student information. We moved to synergy which was the teacher view, parent view, student view um all those pieces, grading, attendance, uh records. Now, Synergy has been a great uh tool for us. Synergy is getting a little bit uh inefficient in some of the usage of it. They're trying to keep up with the changes to state reporting to um all the different needs that schools have. For our particular situation, it's not the most effective tool. So, um, Paul had had experience with JMC, so he looked at how their tools fit our needs, and it was a good fit. Um, JMC is a very simple product. um it still covers the family portals, the student portals, the teacher portals, all of those pieces, but in comparison to even Synergy or
092um some of the the larger uh student information systems out there, those have tools that a school our size doesn't need. you you're looking at some of those schools like Adina or Eden Prairie or even Alexandria who need those high-powered student information tools to to um meet the needs of their large student bodies. We don't need those. So, there's no reason for us to pay for all those extra tools. JMC is going to be a good fit for us because of its simplicity and how it fits into a district that's our size. Um it will take some transition and I think kind of the office and myself are kind of all hands on deck getting this ready for the school year. Ultimately, when it comes down to this pieces, it needs to be easy for
093teachers, students, and families to use. And I believe this will be. And our goal is as the se as the year starts to have as much chaos that is happening on the back end so it doesn't disrupt anything that's happening in the classroom or families and they have a seamless transition or as seamless as possible. So hopefully we will get there. might have a few hiccups here and there that come up. Um, however, I think once we get rolling, families and students and teachers will all like it and it'll be a a easy tool for them to to use, similar to how teacher view and student view was. And this one in theory should be even more user friendly for them. >> Perfect. Questions, comments for Kevin? Thank you, Kevin. >> Absolutely. >> Uh, Mr.
094Norberg. >> Hey, good morning. Um, thank you very much for the acknowledgement of my staff and stuff, but uh, yeah, I I've had a crackpot crew and in the eight years that I've been here, this the facilities, all three of them are the best that I've ever seen them. So, please, if you see them in the hallways or whatever, it's it's on them. They've done a great job. um wrapping up with our summer work and things like that. We've got everything prepped out there for the dugouts um for them to get ready for the the whoever Jake's got lined up to take care of that. We've got that taken care of. Um the steps at North to get repaired will be done by the start of school. Uh we're piggybacking on a couple of projects
095that Jesse's got in the elbow that is helping out instead of just having him specifically come pour our concrete steps. The what else we got going on? Uh curt are the switches for the hoops in the gym. Those are all done. They're all complete. The boxes outside. Um so now you have full view of everything that's going to be dropped in that gym. Um literally dropped. But put down. Put down. Maybe that's the word I should say. Huh? Lower. >> Lower. Lower. Lowered. Slowly. >> Lowered or raised. Yes. Um it's you don't have to stand behind a wall. That's all taken care of. Uh curtains uh for the auditorium are here. Um they were scheduled for the first week in August to do that, but got moved back. So, it's going to be kind of
096the first week in September. Um myself and our staff, we've taken everything down, so it's all ready to go and complete. Um, we also cleaned out the backstage area and kind of sorted piles on the stage and the pallet racking is up and all connected. We're just waiting for the theatrics department. And I was going to talk to Mrs. Stark because I know she has some stuff from homecomings and things like that that could also be stacked back there so they can get that all organized and and taken care of. Um, all of our roof projects are done. Uh, those have all been taken care of. What else do we have? Wood chips. Mr. Brown has been working on that. Hopefully, we can get those in and we'll try and get those all spread out.
097Um, one of the Oh, um, Monday I had a phone call with Ellington's. They are waiting for water to waters to be shipped. Um, they have everything set up on their end. as as soon as they're shipped and get here, they'll be able to get on the project right away. They're not going to sit in a loading dock or something for a couple months. So, um, and as far as school taking place, I don't think that's going to be a problem because it's in the penthouse up above my office area and everything will be taking place out of the loading dock area. So, we shouldn't have to to worry about staff or affecting anything during school. Um, fire marshal because because of the curtains. We got those taken down. I should have said that with
098the curtains. Uh I sent pictures, sent documentation and all that stuff. So, we've been all cleared. All of our um check marks or whatever with with the state fire marshall. We cleared on that. Uh boilers, uh state inspection was yesterday. Um everything was taken care of there with that. We're all good to go with the boilers. So, now we just got to wait for it to get cold so we can put them back together and start. And late yesterday afternoon, I got a email that our scoreboards for North are shipped. So, um I've also contacted the people that are putting them up. They're fully aware and as soon as they arrive at our facility, I contact them and they'll be here within a day or two to get them up. >> Great. >> So, as
099far as all that goes, yeah, we're we're set and looking good. Um final touches going on around the buildings. We're just checking all toilets and sinks now to make sure there's no leaks. Questions or anything? >> And the roofs have been tested. Those are all You didn't say anything about the roofs. Those have been tested though. They're working too. >> Yes, they are. >> The outdoor outdoor classroom that >> not yet, but I've but um the person who we've talked to, he is planning to get that taken care of. >> All right. Any other questions, comments for Chad? Thank you. And that brings us to you, Paul. >> Okay. Staffing, like I mentioned earlier, just uh we still have that music position that we thought we had um a candidate and just took a couple
100weeks to finally finally said I just need an answer yes or no. I said no is perfectly fine. We'd love yes, but it's not going to work and just came back and said no on that. But I think we have another potential lead on that. Um, of course we've been looking to share with Herman that lead may change that up just a little bit, but I feel pretty confident that we'll have somebody ready to go for the start of the school year there. Not necessarily licensed in music, but have some background there for that. And then also that vacancy in the district office just to get that taken care of because um, that was mentioned to me earlier this morning that we don't have a whole lot of things coming out on public relations or
101anything like that. And I know Maggie's done a nice job. Of course, Megan was doing a lot of that before she left, but we need to get that back up and communicating with folks there. Special election, uh the the filing period opened on the 29th and we'll close uh next Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. Maggie is a notary here at the school and her hours oftentimes have her here up until 5:00 each and every day, but uh we will just have that for sure open until 5:00 next Tuesday. Then remember that special election will be held Tuesday, November 4th. Uh polling will take place from 4 to 8. The absentee ballots will be available September 19th. We're grateful that Grant County is helping print those ballots and they've been a great resource to help us get
102things posted. If you go on to the Secretary of State's website, you will see the full list of elections. There's a lot of districts going out. When it says question, it means they're requesting money. And so there's quite a few there. There are other schools that are looking to fill their vacancy. Um, and that's where I'm just checking now to see how we get our affidavits of posting um, onto that website like they've had before. There was one technical change there. Um, I think this has kind of been in the mix for a little while, but candidates no longer have to put their address on there if they believe that there's some potential threat or harm. And I would say after what happened back in into May, June, more candidates may say, "I probably don't
103want my public information out there uh that way." So, but we're moving forward that direction. Maggie's been a great help. This is also where that district office administrative assistant will be a great help as well to to make sure that everything's done in a timely fashion. But you've passed the the notice um or the the resolution calling for the special election. We've got the notice out to the counties um with candidate A, candidate B. Once we get those candidate names, we'll get that to them. So filing closes on the 12th. The notice to the county auditors also needs to be on the 12th. So, I just wanted them to see what our ballot would look like. And then just to say that we'll be replacing with the names that we receive there. And remember, it's
104just to fill a one-year term um up until January, the first Monday in January of 2027. However, this one will be a little different. After that election happens, there's a 30-day challenge period. Once that is complete, then the candidate can start. So, it doesn't need to be we don't have to wait till January. So, that'll be a little different in filling this uh piece there. And of course, it's the seat that Ryan's graciously uh elected to take or been appointed to to fill for us right now. Kevin kind of already talked on the JMC student I say management, but it is student information system. So, we did have a little bit of a a snafu happen earlier, I think this week, but people are ready to get started for early entrance conferences. Um I think
105the other big thing that I want to share with you is I was aware of JMC. I've had prior work with JMC, but we really had it was our MARS reporting was becoming a nightmare. And so I reached out to a couple other schools and said, "Hey, do you guys have support in Mars that we could maybe try to figure out?" And and one superintendent said, "We're not having any issues with Mars." He said, "Everything's going just fine." He said, "I don't think, but he said, "Let me check." He said, "Maybe I thought I maybe just have ignored it." And and everybody that we've talked to said, "No, Mars with um JMC has been very seamless. It's worked very well." And matter of fact, MDE has come out and said these are the issues that
106this particular vendor I won't mention their name, but this particular vendor who we happen to partner who we're currently using is having with when you have to come up with a bunch of workarounds to make the system work. That's usually where the issue is. So, we'll be able to do that. I know we called Leaport earlier this week just to say, "Hey, we're getting a little nervous. The building principles are nervous that we need to get this stuff out for early entrance conferences." And uh their secretary said, "This is all I put out." She goes, "We were with the same vendor you were with and we've never been more happy to have a switch." So, they've done that and so we'll be doing that as well. Like Kevin noted, there's probably going to be some
107growing pains here and there, but some of the tools that they'll be able to offer. For example, one of the things that I think is pretty neat is if we have an advisor coming back, a coach coming back, they can go on to JMC's message center and they can say, "Guess what? The bus is 15 minutes late." And they can put that out there. it goes out to all the families and stuff like that. So, it's a great tool for information. It does it seamlessly that way. And so, it's going to be, I think, something there. I know one of our current teachers who used it in the prior district said, "I used it. This is not going to be something there." But, I'm sure there's going to be some hiccups as we train our
108staff day one um to go through there just a little bit, but we'll make sure. And the biggest thing I think too that Leaport said was the technical assistance and the support was superior to what they had had before. So hopefully that'll all work well there. Uh fall workshop is coming up the 18th through the 22nd. Uh those letters will go out today to our staff. Um I'll make sure that I include you in that email so you can see that what's going out to them. But it does include um really that opening day Monday which we're looking forward to. That's going to be a full day with JMC training for our teachers. We have other components um some LCTS training as well as some first aid CPR and training our support staff in on
109Renaissance as well. Then the afternoon K's been working in her collaborative role to do some Grant County PD. So we'll be sharing with Ashby and Herman Norcross in the afternoon going over to West Palm Lodge. The the collaborative is taking care of all those expenses um and things that way. But I think the other thing we forgot to mention with our just work is Ashby's also doing was also at the conference. So we'll be able to do some collaboration there even with a with a neighbor and things like that. So um early entrance conferences are also that same week of our fall workshop schedule. So it's going to be a busy week. Uh but that does allow for a longer Christmas break and we're still done at the end of May. I think that was
110really the calendar committee's review when they did that. And we've offered some flexibility for our teachers um between Thursday and Friday. So, if they work until 7 o'clock on Thursday, they'll be able to not have to come in on Friday. They'll have all their time in or they can come back and on Friday if they want to make up those or get those last hours that they need to do. And I think that was one of the positive things that we heard in negotiations a little bit is just some of that flexibility and and things like that. So, you'll see all the other dates that are coming up. Um Maya and I are already late to our I love you guys workshop this morning. Uh, so we'll make sure we get off to that. Teacher
111negotiations, I guess just an update there. I believe we're very close and hopefully we'll be able to get that wrapped wrapped up here before the start of the the school year there, too. There's just a couple pieces that we need to address. Questions, comments from Mr. Brown. All right, then we will move into new business. Um, the first item will be a plethora of numbers that are just um MSBA updates for um yearly. These are done the first group batch is yearly, correct? >> These are all the legislative changes. So when the law changed, they're just so they're telling us you'll see some of those are statutory reference changes. So they even said that actually our administrative staff could just take care of that. But I wanted you to be aware of it since that's
112been our protocol. And then the other ones you're going to see they're very small changes. So they say that that can just be done in one meeting. That's a recommendation we've always kind of followed. And that does follow our policy 208 that they mention in the notes as well. So these first items will be um just one reading. We don't have to do the second one. And they would be policies 414, 416, 418, 425, 501, 503, 514, 515, 516, 516.5, 524, 534, 602, 606.5, 613, 620, 621, 624, 707, 709, 802, and 806. Um, you would have gotten all those just with the clerical updates. Um, are there any questions, comments on those policies? I'll look for a motion to approve those. >> So, move. >> And a second. >> Second. >> All in favor say
113I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Um, so item two would be the first reading of the following policies with statutory and recommended um changes from MSBA. That would be policy 527 and the form student use and park parking of motor vehicles, patrols, inspections, and searches. Uh 528, student, parent, family, and marital status non-discrimination and policy 529 and form staff notification of violent behavior by student. Um that is just the first reading of those policies. I probably could have did that in one as well because it's the same policy from August of 2022. There are no changes, but we'll follow the same practice that we've done before, but there are no changes. So, as you noticed in your packet, it's the exact same policies. Nothing's changed. >> Any questions, comments on those? Then we will move
114forward um to review and approve the following handbooks. Um, elementary school student handbook, secondary school student handbook, elementary school staff handbook, secondary school staff handbook, coaches handbook, and daycare handbook. Are there any questions, comments? You have any? >> I just maybe if the administrators want to just give a brief um summary to say if there was any changes, what those maybe looked like? I think it was pretty minor from my understanding, right? But if there's anything that sticks out, I know cell phone policy was something that we had talked about with both because the legislature has kind of directed us to do that, but really it was supposed to be set back in March. And so I think we're kind of keeping things consistent with the exception of like Mr. uh Woods said, just some
115consistency because that really kind of came from our staff, I think, saying right that we need to have one consistent plan because we're all over the place. So that's why you came up with uh with the pouches to take care of that. But is there anything? >> Yeah. No, our our student handbook didn't change much. We already had no cell phones and no smartwatches. That was in previous. Um so we kept that kept that the same. Um and then I just took some of the same language that Nate had if there was we don't typically see cell phones really come into the elementary school, but I just took the same language from um what Nate had and some that came out from MESPA to add if there was a violation, these would be the steps
116that we follow. So, um, like I said, we already had the no cell phone and no smart watches. It did come up at the end of the year just to maybe reinforce more no smart watches because there was some calls being made maybe during the school day. And, um, so that, like I said, that was already in our handbook previously. And all I did was just take some of that language just to say if there was a violation, these would be the steps we'd follow, which is similar to the high school. Um, and then our staff handbook pretty much stayed the same. I just added a little blurb about our leadership team. really what is our purpose and our goal when we meet. So any questions about those for elementary? >> Okay. And you see,
117secondary was adding that piece on our cell phone policy and modified our advisory weekly plan a little bit just from um instead of doing the um lesson every Friday, it's a monthly lesson and that that will tie into the Johnston's has a a mental health lesson that is a monthly theme. And so instead of doing that every week, we'll do the theme that ties into the Johnson's Renaissance framework. Those were the two changes there. And then no changes to the staff handbook >> as far as the coach's handbook. Just some minor grammatical changes, words I had misspelled and some dates I had wrong. So the cell phones go on the secondary side. So teachers and still have the ability to allow students to use their cell phones as tools. >> Yes. >> Like if they
118if say there's an app that you want to use in your classroom, hey everyone, grab your phone. We're going to scan this QR code and work on this together. That's absolutely appropriate. Yeah. >> And how are you going to handle So there's going to be more consistency on the student level. >> Do you have plans for more consistency on the staff level use of cell phones? If the kids are sitting, you know, their cell phones got to be in pocket and they're seniors. They're just they're adults going to the next world, you know. Do you have plans to address that? Make sure that's consistent so that staff isn't >> Well, I think if that's if that's an issue, it needs to get reported. You know what I mean? Like I think that >> the kids
119are going to report it. Right. >> Right. Right. Um but I do think that yes, probably looking at some type of overall electronic device policy as a district, right, is a good idea. um you know it's a little bit right it's a little different between a staff and a student right students you know if you have your coffee cup as a teacher it's different than if you're a student so I think there's some flexibility that needs to be looked at for that but I do think also if this is something that's consistently being a problem where you have teachers on phones and not modeling the appropriate behavior that's that is something we would want to address yes >> and if I were to piggyback on that I don't I think that is in the rarity
120here that that does go on and if it does become a problem, I think we would address that point. >> Any other questions, comments on the handbooks? >> Well, I'll just maybe I updated the the uh daycare handbook. Um Ryan pointed out that I forgot to change one name there. So, we'll get a name updated there on that piece. Remember, Amanda Rays will be taking over a lot of that daycare stuff there. we're going to all lot time so she can actually do the management piece and the supervision piece instead of just always being in the classroom doing the work with the students. So, we'll allow for that. Uh then we did increase the rates. Remember, we're still working through Tanya is really digging into our community fund for fund because that's where we have
121our biggest deficit uh in all of our funds. And so, we did raise the three-year-old per week from 150 to 160. Uh the four-year-old from 110 to 120. Uh the drop in rate stays at 40. But then we also raised the non-registered preschool students from 165 to 175. And that was a conversation that Megan and I had before she left. And so that's really the only change there, plus a few other things that um that just had some grammatical fixes, but I forgot the one name. So we'll get that changed before that goes out to our families there for the daycare handbook. Any questions, comments? I would look for a motion, excuse me, to approve the handbooks. >> So move >> and a second. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >>
122Motion carries. Um we have the following uh personnel items. We have one resignation, Carissa Green. Um any questions, comments on that? I look for a motion to approve that. motion >> and a second. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. Um, moving down, uh, we have the PSO agreement with Alexander Technical and Community College uh, for 2526. Any questions, comments on that, Mr. Brown? >> Annual thing. We have some students that participate in the PSCO program. We always want those contracts taken care of because there is some funding associated with that from MDE or from the state. If we don't have signed contracts, we don't qualify for the funding. So, it's just kind of laying out that groundwork. And you've already approved the one for MSTate um prior and
123CLC. So, this is kind of the final one for the colleges that our kids have opportunities to take some college classes from. Any other questions on that? Look for a motion to approve the PSTO agreement. Move >> and a second. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Um that brings us to our goan ticketing. Mr. Fosley. I >> swear my computer does not like connecting with us. Those of you that were here Monday, it saw that I struggled. >> Try turning it on. Turning it off. >> I can't do that. I what I have is that there's like a three minute. >> It's ready. I I've got it here for you, I think, J. Okay. >> Yeah. So, it'll >> So, maybe you can call it up. >>
124What could connect? >> Uh oh, Kevin's gone. They're in trouble. >> Kevin's usually my savior when it comes to this, too. So, >> did you did you hit the window K button? >> Yes. And mine just does this. >> I think you want to see this before I can get into a few other pieces as well. So, Go find camera. >> He did this on purpose. So we go that way. We still Yeah, >> he was snickering as he walked out of the room, I think. >> Do you want to Oh, here we go. Is this it? Nope. >> It says connecting. One of us is going to get on. Paul, are we on the right input? >> All right. Well, anyways, as we uh try to get this to work, um you should have
125been sent a couple resources. I think you guys from Mr. problem. Uh some resources from Gopan and uh some things I put together. Um this is this is something that that I feel very strong on and it's it's something that has you uh attend events and continue to attend more events. You're going to see more and more venues uh move to cashless. Um, as we discussed this in the office, I think the one thing that we really need to consider here if it's something we move forward, and I'll credit Mr. Wood for bringing this up, um, if it's an option where where we do explore this, uh, we we believe DFS needs to have a cashless option in the concession stand. I've sent some resources to them as well. They were set to meet last
126Monday. However, things came up and that meeting got postponed. So I was hoping to have some information from their discussions uh to you. Unfortunately I do not u but I know they they are going to discuss it as well. Um again for them not eliminating cash but at least have the option for a cash reader uh or or a card reader to go cashless. Um for for GoF. Um it's the provider that Ford schools in our conference use and other area schools use as well. So Paul, if maybe if you want to play it now. >> Okay. >> And then um hopefully you have some >> is the leading digital ticketing and event management provider for K through 12 schools partnering with over 40 state associations and thousands of school districts across the country. >>
127Go find a state provider as well. ticket sales and reporting for over 700,000 events each year. Goofan supports campuswide events and activities. Our core product suite includes mobile event tickets, digital season passes, and on-site card payments. Streamline sales and reporting for tickets, season passes, concession items, and fundraisers. Fans purchase from a customized schedule page that displays your campuswide events. Using the filter options, fans can quickly find relevant events and purchase tickets on the web or through the Go Fan app. Available on iOS and Android. At the event, fans present their tickets on a mobile phone. Tickets can be used in real time with a green check mark animation confirming valid entry. No scanners or Wi-Fi needed for ticket redemption with GoFam. Used tickets are accessible within the fans account but cannot be shared or duplicated.
128Goofam box office unlocks flexible on-site payments across school events including ticket and pass sales, concessions, merchandise, and more. Each box office kit includes an iPad data plan and card reader. Card payments are captured through the same event sales report and payment as mobile sales. Utilize pre-generated QR code signs to sell mobile tickets on site and alleviate long lines. Fans can purchase seamlessly with guest checkout and mobile wallet integrations. Goofan mobile passes solve three distinct challenges for administrators. fulfilling physical passes, avoiding lost cards, and eliminating passbacks. Fans can purchase and manage mobile passes from their phone. Pass options can be customized from sport specific to all sports. View and manage your tickets links through PlayOn HQ. Schedules can be imported from partner scheduling platforms to create ticket links automatically. View real-time sales information leading up to
129and during the event from your computer or phone. Within HQ, our financial hub stores all ticket sales reports and provides interactive dashboards to further dissect ticket sales data. Annual, quarterly, and monthly reports are all available for review within the financial hub, creating a comprehensive overview for business offices. Accounting codes can be added for more detailed reporting. Schools receive a weekly ticket sales payment and can choose between a direct deposit or mailed check. Each weekly payment statement provides details of all events included in each payment and is available as a PDF or spreadsheet file. Schools use GoFan to save time, increase revenue, and elevate the fan experience. For more information, please reach out to the GoFan team. >> So that that gives a nice overview what GOF is. When I talked to them, I asked them
130to put this together. It's not something just for WCA. Um I felt it could provide you guys a much broader background what it does. Um our our cost to implement it would be zero. Um if if we were to add an additional card reader or additional resources then there would be some cost to it um they would provide us the card reader um and different resources that we would need to go with this um provider. Um we set it up however we want. Um we set up our student passes, our rates are basically we we tell them this is what we want it to look like. Um everything is all done as you can see all online. All all the reports get sent to Maggie. Um there's no recounting the cash box, no reconciling it.
131Um when you do get your ticket, there is no scanner. All you do is as you come in the door, you just touch the phone and that's your entry in. Um when you purchase a ticket, say Nate doesn't know how to use his phone and he doesn't know how to buy a ticket. I can purchase a ticket. I can transfer it to him and he doesn't need the GoFan app. It'll just come through in a text message. They open it, boom, he's in, done. So, it makes for a very seamless uh uh integration into this into the gymnasium. Uh those of you who have have been here on large events, you know, sometimes our ticket gate can go all the way back to the office. Uh for football, we've seen cars all the way down
132the road waiting to get in. Um that's right. I I really feel there's some value here to move to online for that ease to get into our arenas. We set the prices however we want. Our current rate is 8 and5. Uh I I I do know and and I recognize there there is some apprehension of a service fee and and that does come along with this. For every ticket that you you do sell um GoFan does get a dollar of that ticket and that's a non-negotiable. That's just what it is. Um, if you incorporate, say we want to do our sell our season passes and different things, they have a percentage rate the higher you go. So, say you you sell a student or a student pass at like $60 or a family pass at
133$60. There's a 3% charge and some other things. So, it it might end up being like 68 or something. And I and I haven't done any of those math uh equations just because we don't know what those numbers would be. Um, again, this is the provider for region six. This is the provider for uh state high school league. Um, I mean, I I could go on and on. You guys have the resources that he sent as well. And I I think right now if you have questions for me, I don't want to take up a lot of your time about this. I'm willing to answer anything that has come your way. Just one. I think you mentioned that the other schools in our conference use this. >> Um, and there's a like a punch card
134type setup in this. >> Can you buy it and use it in all the locations? >> So, if if we do a punch card for WCA, that would only be for our home events. So, I could go to Minowaska, say I wanted to buy one at Minowaska because they do go fan as well. I could um but it's for mainly for your home events. The other part about GoFan is it integrates right into our school. So, um, those of you know I like to push the R school app. Ticket links automatically show up on there. Um, if you've looked at games that we have right now with Minowaska, their links are already there. Um, Minowaska uses it. Sock Center, Melrose, and Mavidio all use it. And that will be a discussion today at our conference
135meeting as well. Where where is this going? Um, I would say this, I mean, this this train is moving. Um, and it's something that I think we have to decide. Are we going to jump on? Are we going to be the caboose? Or where do we where do we land in this? I don't see this going away. Right now there's like 140 schools in to goof fan in Minnesota and they anticipate that number getting over 200 by the end of the school year. That more and more people are finding the ease with this instead of Maggie and I trying to figure out a cash box, running to the bank. Oh, did you do the cash box? What do I mean? it it just gets to be kind of a time consuming process where I think
136we could clean some of that as well on the administrative end. So, two things, Jake, on that season pass, can we instead of paying them that administrative fee, couldn't we do our own laminated card and have a list so we're not paying them to take the 65 bucks? let's keep all that money and just >> well they just show that >> option on there where maybe you don't want the service fee on there and we as a school district eat that as well. >> But I'm saying we don't have to eat it if we have our own punch card, right? We're going to we're going to play their game a little bit. If they're going to do that, we'll just say here's where it's at. So then it's just their responsibility to have that season
137pass to show up or we've got that list. So that would be one And I know the other thing that you offered some clarity on was when we go up to Fargo Dome or some of those places they did take cash, but you said sometimes there already >> is different. If you've been to section football, Fargo Dome has a contract with Ticket Master. So therefore, to do cashless, they can't do cashless there. Well, I shouldn't say they can't. If they choose to, Ticket Master gets $3 of each ticket. So region six has said, "No, we're not doing that. We're going to just keep rates where they are." Um, So that's why if you go to section football, that's why it's cash because it would cost the region a ton of money to do cashless there
138or the provider or the the consumer a ton of money. Um my my view on this is if it's something we want to do, I I would I would advocate for the sooner the better. Uh if that's not option A, option B, I would I would advocate for informing our public this is coming. um whether or not that implementation is this fall, this winter, probably not the spring because we don't have a lot of cash events this spring. Um or we say, "Okay, we're we're going to look into this and coming next year, we we do this. I I would on top of that, I would say if we do this, I would not have any cash at the gate. I would do it all cashless at the gate." I I know for some people
139that's hard. Um, but I would say our public knows cashless. I mean, let's let's be honest with all of the state tournaments that our our communities have been in, our attendance has been great. All of those are cashless venues. So, I I think our community knows how to do this. I think the longer we wait, the longer we're going to go, well, how do we do this again? What does this look like? So, um, I I'm all for it. I I think you could ask a lot of ads, they're all for it. I think if you ask community members, they're going to go, "Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, pump the brakes." But again, I I would tell you this this train is moving. And >> I think if we communicate and provide support for people
140that are unsure and really babysit that in the beginning, I think we should just >> I think from the community standpoint, I mean, heard there just many people going, "Why aren't we doing this when we walk in? Why isn't Central doing this?" There just many people saying that as would say the other. So I think >> Do you think that the concessions is close to coming with I I I did hear that if you're going to go cashless at the door, you better have an option at because I'm not bringing cash then, right? So I want to go get my popcorn and I want to get my pizza and I don't want to have to bring cash for that, but I can't get in the door with it. So >> Mindy was here last night
141after our signage meeting and her and I spoke a little bit. She's reached out to a few DFS members and a couple that have have talked to her, they're all for it. They're there just some questions. What does that look like? And what does that look like from a a service fee for them and then just systematically their their prices? And that would be some pieces they would have to iron out. But yes, I mean, if it's something we were to do, the I think the only way this works is that option has to be there. If they say no, then I I I think we have to take a step back on this as well. >> And that could be Golf Fan as well. >> Yep. They could use Gold Fan. They could use
142their own provider there, too. So, >> do you think if we were to do it this year, winter sports would be the time to start or is it just too rushed to try and do it? >> Well, if it's something we wanted to do now, we could do now. There there there could be some work to implement it this fall. um might be too soon, but if if you do winter sports, I mean that would give you a pretty good timeline to work >> to communicate it. >> Yeah, >> I was just going to ask is one enough at the football gate. You know, usually there's two lines coming in. Do you need a second reader type deal for that part? I obviously at the door here, one probably gets you through, but >> I
143I don't know if it would be worth your investment to get a second reader there. Um because that that secondary product costs around $700 to $750 when you already get one reader. I I don't know if you would want to go with two. So >> I just you know you talked about the line. So now it's one line instead of two line. You know again just a question. Doesn't matter either way to me. But >> I think giving time to roll out. We've already got JMC kind of going. There's going to be a lot of learning there. Now, we're in an interior space. If we do have to have, maybe it's you that's pulling people over and walking them through that where if we're outside, >> we provide a lot of signage, too. A lot
144of QR codes where you can just come in the gate, scan the code, boom, you're in. Um, they do all of the setup. We just tell them, "Here's what it looks like." You know, we would have to advertise where where the link is found, do you need the app, what a transfer looks like. You know, >> I think we still need people there. I'm of that age now or don't give me the QR code. You made the change. Walk me through this and show me how it's going to work the first time. I think >> that they have two lines typically when you walk in if you don't if you're not ready to go or you need help, you go over here. If you're just >> Well, one's a cash line. >> One's a cash
145line and then one's the >> Yeah, I think the cash line is going away. >> Yeah, they've had it for a couple years. From our discussion, them in Stock Center have have both offered cash and cashless and they're ready to say no. Monovidos implementing this year, no cash, just straight cashless. So >> maybe maybe if we go like you said we start winter sports, we we don't have somebody for communications right now anyway and and families are learning like you said, then you do it well. I just see football being kind of a nightmare out there with all the cars and out there waiting longer. We just don't want it to be a negative thing where they go, "Oh, they thought they were going to create efficient season." >> I think we have to be
146honest. It might be a negative thing when we start. People are going to go worse cash. I mean I I think we all want to be real with that because I mean this is a significant change from what we all are used to. >> Is it a I mean is it a I know we talked about just starting in the winter sports. Is it something where you maybe bring it in and have it as an option for volleyball to start with as we start into the seasons? Again, like you talked about, it's an indoor environment. We're not cars lined up out the street. And maybe it's a way to start the process flowing without I mean, I understand if >> I mean, we we could look at the option of keeping cash and going cashless
147this year and and go, okay, next year then it's not cashless. So um you know there again that would hinge on DFS and and that would be a discussion you know our current ticket takers that varies every year that's the junior postprong parents so every year it's a different group of people >> right >> um every year the math always looks different when we reconcile the box so um yeah >> what you were thinking was for volleyball you have both for volleyball and then >> just an idea, you know, maybe we don't worry about football right away because we talked about that. But yeah, maybe it's an option, you know, if you want to come in and have a cashless option, maybe it just kind of gets our feet wet and I don't know if
148you you want to jump in the winter sports and say winters are going to be all cashless. So, there's a little leadup to that, but maybe it just kind of breaks the ice as we go into this and people kind of get in the habit of it. >> It doesn't cost anything for us to try it, right? No, no, we would sign a contract with GoFan. If we wanted additional resources, then there would be a cost, >> right? So, I don't I don't see what the harm in in getting it set up would be if it's an option to cash. There's no downside to that. If if people don't like it, they can still use cash until everybody decides this is what we're going to do. But I don't see why pushing it off when
149when it doesn't cost us anything to to get on the trains. >> What some the schools that have done both um they have said here's the online rates and cash rate is $10 a ticket no matter the ticket. So I don't mind the trial thing for what Maya was saying if that's something you want to do. But going forward just go cashes because otherwise we're just creating more work for you by doing both. You still got to reconcile the cash. You still got to do everything that we're trying to get away from and implement the new program. And like you said, we've had parents, grandparents, everybody I mean, they're all attending these events that we've had in the last three, four years, and we've all done it. Whether we taught our parents how to do
150it or we did it for them and transferred the ticket or they learned on their own, everybody, I don't remember anybody not getting in the door, right? So, the the first year region six used this, if you remember, it was at Roosevelt, gym, and Fergus. It was bumpy. the second year they used it. I mean, fans are just flying through the door getting in. So, I mean, there there is some transition with this. Um, and that's something again we all have to recognize. Um, it it leads to a discussion later on. What are what are rates? What do we want to look at? Um, as I discovered in one of my last region six meetings, they're seeing, and this is ironic where it happens, is the metro regions, people are buying student tickets because you
151don't scan it. you just tap your phone. So they're, well, geez, we have 400 students here and 20 adults. So you're seeing regions go to not an adult price, not a student price, just a general admission price. This is the price for all tickets. And and I I know there was some discussion, and again, I'm no longer on the region committee, but there was some discussion, does region six just do that? Just a general admission ticket price for every >> Well, we don't charge for our students, right? >> Right. And they they could get a free pass right on >> Gop fan and that would track their attendance and track who's there. So I mean that that's a discussion too as we as we start to look into this. What do we what does that
152look like for rates? I mean we we have a fairly generous system with our our public right now with uh our senior rates, our EMS, our student, our staff. Is that something we want to continue to you know so so that may be a discussion down the road. Um And maybe it's something you want to bring back to your areas and talk to your your people. What is what's the feeling? Know that there is going to be apprehension. I I I don't I think we would all joke or kid ourselves if we didn't think there was. Um but I I I truly think with what you saw on that slide, the resources you have, the things I I've provided that there is a lot of positives here for us to to seriously look into this.
153Could we make a motion that we would go cashless for winter sports and that the provision is out there for you to explore the viability of volleyball skip football because that is a different >> concessions isn't dollars for scholars. >> No. And that would be the other piece there. What does that look like? >> Yeah. >> So concessions out of football is football boosters. >> So >> and I like that idea of waiting until we get to those winter sports. But I like your idea too. Maybe some transition in volleyball where we have our marketing person >> that provision if you guys think you can manage it but you're not forced to. >> It's kind of a wordy motion cla but is that what you'd like to do? >> Yes. >> Can you restate it?
154So I >> am in my understanding. So then what the motion would be is that we would go cashless winter sports across the board. provide cash support, >> right? If we can get volleyball set up to start the process so that we can do some cash list during the volleyball season um and then we work on the concession pieces as we move into that is that is that >> and I would also urge further discussion too as we maybe that's me and Mr. ground law or a full board discussion. What does this look like as we start to implement it and and start to move forward with it and that would encompass rates and concessions and all of those pieces. So, >> and probably notifying visiting schools as well, right? I think that's what didn't
155want and notifying visiting schools that are coming that are maybe aren't under that system because didn't Minowasa do that >> and all that stuff because if you have a fan who's not used to that and they get there and I guess what I'm I think it's a great thing. we just need to be prepared or you got to be prepared when that one person comes in and says I don't have a credit card or I'm not using a credit card. So then do we say there's the door or do we say >> yeah that's all I would do is just say there's the >> or or do you get in free and then the next three people go oh that's going to be enough >> I would tell them go ask a student open door
156seven and they can come in >> so I think it's just having >> and there again I I understand moving through this that there's going to be apprehension. I I'm fully aware of that and I'm fully aware that this is new. This is different. This is way out of the realm of of what WCA has done for events. And you know, I just know from my experience with this and the schools that I've talked to, once you get into this and get used to it, it it's just going to be change. And we all know change is different and change change sometimes doesn't go well. I think just that communication piece is going to be key because if they get up here and they find out you're cashless and they're not prepared because I think
157all those schools before if I recall pushed out a lot of stuff to say let your fans know we don't take cash I think we owe that to those other schools as well just so they can communicate and if they say well that's fine and no when I just walk through the door no actually we sent it to your ad we've got on our website we've got it on Facebook that we can say here's all our communication that always seems to be the challenge right is communication is what we hear is our piece. So, >> some of these schools that have entered in with Goofan, just as as what you guys are talking about, they have it. It's maybe not primary at their gate, but it's still a resource if they want to use it.
158And that that that could be a template we adopt as we continue to go down this road. Maybe we find an implementation this this isn't as smooth as what I would like it to be and we peel it back a little bit. So, I'm I'm I'm all ears to to to listening to try to make this happen. So, and and flexible, which is a word you don't hear me use very often. So, >> this Justin is really rubbing off. I like it. Right. Yeah. I like it. >> Wait till you see that opening day what he's got planned. I can't wait. >> Um Okay. Okay. So, at this time we have a motion and a second um to go forward with a winter implementation with potentially some fall >> transition and then check with >>
159work through that. >> Um and obviously this will be fluid and and maybe there's some changes as we go forward. But at this time I have that motion and second. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Motion carries. >> Easy. We should have started with that. Um so then we're going to bring up our facility planning process. Um moving that ahead of our closed meeting for discussion. Um just as we as we look at so we we received a recommendation from our task force. Um now what right that's kind of where we're at is what is our next steps. So, um, as we start down this process, you know, initially the the board is going to have to have a discussion about this and see where where the board sits on this recommendation. Do
160we take this recommendation? Do we throw it in the garbage can and start over? Do we um do we tweak it? Do we say, you know, we need to see more information? Do we need to survey people? Um this discussion starts you know uh it's going to be a lot of discussion and so do we have a a board workshop do we have an extra meeting do we you know go to towns and do public you know here here's what we heard what does everybody think about this um a couple things if we start looking at at the endgame is obviously to go to a bond for some sort of a facility recommendation um typically ally we need to have our plan laid out, drafted, all those things probably four and a half to 5
161months prior to an election time. So, for instance, if it's a November election by mid June, we need to have everything ready to go. It's already been through um you know, drafted. Well, that would be about the review and comment time, right? So we have to go to review and comment a certain number about 3 months prior to our 80ome days before the election time frame. So roughly 5 to 6 months ahead of that we have to have um our plan ready. So as we look at times we could go for um an election. Typically it's November like we all know there's a there's a window in February, there's a window in May. I think there's also an August window. >> That sounds correct. >> And so, you know, is the board interested in a
162special election? Do we want to wait for a general election? How does that you the board has to kind of come to some of those decisions as far as um if you ask me, I don't I don't think we should do a special election. We've already got one coming this year. Um they're they're more costly. Um I think that we have a lot of work to do yet before we are even ready. So if you look at February, we're almost we're almost to the point where we need to be, you know, have the packet ready to go to review and comment at this time right now for February. So I mean, really, realistically, February's out for us. Um May still puts us really pushing it. Um it seems silly to do August when you're, you
163know, November is right next, you know, coming up a couple months later. So, you know, in my opinion, and again, this is just one of seven, um, you know, that general election time frame, November, makes the most sense for us as a district. Um, if we're ready, if we're ready by then. Um, so I guess just to start the discussion, um, you know, hearing from board members, are we are we thinking we we want to have a, you know, a special meeting to talk about this? do we, you know, call it a workshop and and where are we at? Um, it's going to be, I mean, there's a lot of discussion that needs to happen. Um, everybody's got their own opinion of the recommendation that came to us, obviously. Um, we'd like, uh, WHSH to
164come in really give that presentation of what does what is 3B, right? I mean, they made a recommendation of 3B and what is 3B and and how do they get to that, right? So, um, that'll be one piece that we want to definitely have in this process is have Whitth come in and really explain for the board and and, you know, put it on, you know, our website to say this is what 3B is. Um, you can look at some documentation, but sometimes that explanation is is a much more powerful, you know, tool than than just a bunch of papers to look at and read. So, um, I guess just open up for some comments or ideas, um, where everybody's feeling we're at. Uh, do we start, you know, is this just, uh, the next
165board meeting we're going to have this much time allotted for this or, you know, how does that how does everybody feel about um, this process as we move forward? >> I think we just got to do a workshop. >> Okay. >> Figure out something because too much discuss at a board meeting. >> They seem to get full and especially this time of year there's a lot of stuff going on. I guess we got to start school again or something like that. So, um seems to be a few things in the mix. So, um yeah, I mean I I know in the past we had, you know, several additional meetings and workshop type environments. Um and I think the other piece is we really want to be transparent with this. So, we want to make sure
166that if we are going to do that, you know, we want to make sure people are aware of that and and they can see what we're doing and and uh as we move forward. So, um yeah, any other comments? >> I will agree with Kayla. We should schedule a a workshop and uh you know, we invested a lot of time in the decision that was given to us or the recommendations. by we need to treat that with respect and >> and have Wood Seth come and we need to spend some time with him. Okay, >> I'm seeing some head nods, some um so I guess I I would think we should we'll reach out to Whitth and find out some dates that work for them. Um I would guess workshop probably typically would be in
167the evening. you know, everybody's got to get to work. It doesn't make sense to start a good discussion and then have to leave it. So, um, is there a time frame? Do we want to look at that 5:30 board meeting time frame? Do we want to go a little bit later on something like this? Um, are there dates that anybody says, "No, we can't be." You know, obviously we're not going to schedule it over the first football game or something like that. But, um, does Wednesdays, you know, I know we've, as a board, we've kind of made adopted Wednesdays as our date because it doesn't interfere with a lot of activity pieces. Um, is that make sense to everyone? >> I agree with that. >> 5:30 is a good time for me. >> Okay. So,
168we probably um reach out to Witsth, get a couple of date options, um push that out to the board to make sure it's going to work for everybody. Obviously, we want everybody to be a part of this administration. Um as we move forward, we're you know, we're going to bring in staff and students and, you know, we're going to have to take 3B and turn that into what we really want. You know, there there may be some tweaks there. Obviously, the group that um put this together um there was teachers involved in that plan. um but not every teacher, right? So, we want to make sure that, you know, everybody's space is what they what they're looking for and and if we're going to hopefully do this and do it right and make sure that
169everybody gets where where we need to be and and gets their bookshelf in the right spot in their room type deal. So, um that's kind of where we're at to start to break that down and and uh tear this plan. I I shouldn't say ter I mean but break down what this plan is and make sure that it's what we want going forward and and uh we get the the buy in from everybody as we as we start to push this out. Um and then obviously we talked about the you know public relations part of it to put that out to the public. Um making sure that you know people are aware. I I I can't tell you how many times over the past few bond options that I heard from people afterwards, well, I
170didn't I didn't know, you know, I didn't know this was this way or I didn't know this was that way. And and so it doesn't we can always do a better job communicating out to people and making sure that everybody understands what the plan looks like. So um as we move forward then we'll obviously um part of that process will be establishing a timeline you know again that's just my opinion that November works should be you know should be considered but you know as we come up with a plan then we'll back plan from there as far as okay we have um you know by middle of June we need to have the plan back from you know the development stage so that we know this is what we're going to send in for review
171and comment Um, we have a pretty good idea on some of those pieces, but we need to make sure that's finalized. You know, when do we hold public meetings? You know, there was a talk of, okay, this was a one-site plan. you know, we we need to make sure that we communicate with the, you know, prospective towns that, you know, this plan we're moving forward with is a one-site plan and we're um here's our plan for what happens with the building in your town and your town, whatever it is. Um, you know, that's got to be part of our process, too, is to, you know, make those city councils and, you know, aware of a plan that we would move forward with. Um, whatever that may be. And so, um, again, that time timeline has
172to be established. So, as we move forward, that'll be part of the part of this process. So, um, >> so do we want to look at some dates and if we're thinking Wednesdays, do we want to try to shoot for as early as August 27th? The board meetings on the 20th and that'll now it's a 7:00 a.m. I don't know if you want to come at 7:00 a.m. and then stay here till 8:00 p.m., but um otherwise the 27th would be an open Wednesday, >> if I may offer two Mondays. There is only really one event on Mondays. So, if Mondays do have to show up, there is some flexibility on Mondays. >> Okay. Stay away from Tuesday, Thursday in the fall. >> Absolutely. >> Be well and Friday. >> Do you have What about
173What Monday did you say was already full? So we >> Well, on Mondays there's um there's a JV football event and that's the only event on Monday. So if you have to go to a Monday, that that would be your least >> the next least intrusive date. >> So So we'd have the 20th, the 27th. I I don't think we'll be able to get them here next Wednesday. and you might need time to kind of digest and probably absolutely >> formulate a little bit of a discussion guide, I think, so we don't come in without having anything there. And >> but the 27th would be a possibility. I would say the first week of school could be awfully busy, so the third may not be a good idea. >> Administrative. >> Oh, actually that's our
174board meeting already, the third. So yeah, maybe be the 10th. This could be difficult for me, but if for sure else it's not. >> Well, I think it'd be nice to have everybody's voice here. >> May through the 10th. >> Are we uh I mean, is everybody on in favor of trying to work something out the end of August the 27th? Dave, Kayla, >> I don't work that day. >> Josh, good. Okay. So maybe we reach out, we'll reach out to WIDST to see if that 27th date would be available and we'll let you know on that piece of it and uh try to get them in here. Um obviously a special meeting workshop type thing. We'll post that prior to, but um we'll make sure that they're okay and can bring some representation in
175with us and we'll kind of dive into what 3B actually is and and then we can, you know, realistically we're going to, you know, as an example, we just decide as a board this is the direction we're going to go, you know, then we're we're going to lock in on, you know, what is our plan and start to work those pieces. Um, and I would I would anticipate that, you know, plan for several more additional meetings and and uh getting public feedback and and all sorts of things whether we do a school perception survey, you know, all sorts of things are going to come up as we move forward with this. But um realistically I would say the first you know the first order of business is to look at what 3B is and make
176sure that you know the board is on the board is on board with um moving forward with that plan. So um we'll we'll see what comes out of that. So any other questions comments on this process? Again we'll establish a timeline. you know, the board as as we again example, we adopt this. We say, "Yep, this is our this is our plan. This is what we're moving forward with. You know, we're going to start to, you know, reverse plan from what our target date is and say, okay, by this date, we got to have this ready. By this date, we got to have this ready." Um, we need to start, you know, establishing at this point some community type meeting dates. Um I know in the past we've gone back and forth whether we meet
177in every town we meet you know some have been well attended some have not been well attended. Um so this board will have to decide what our plan moving forward to you know push out the information is um and then we'll go from there. So all right well that email is on its way already. So, we will um get back on a date for that, but hopefully that 27th will work and we can just start the process and and really dig into this. So, um with that, then we'll move for a close session to negotiate uh to talk some negotiation strategy. Um is there a motion to move to a close meeting? >> So, move >> and a second. >> Second. >> All in favor say I. I