WCA School Board Committee Meeting March 5th 2025

001they're made to get you addicted no matter how little or how much you ingest you're going are you will get addicted sooner or later do you have any idea or a ballpark on like how many kids have you guys have your group has touched like how many kids have you had come talk to you or how many kids show up to your meetings or on that so when I did the tabling event I had a lot of like younger kids kind of like come up to me and ask me a lot of questions and it was a lot of younger kids getting worried especially for their parents because if their parents smoke that's just having like that's worrying us about our parents' health and like there's been a lot of kids like that trying to

002come up to us or just like even parents who didn't know it's just we haven't gotten to as many teenagers as I would like I'd like to get to all that I could but it's just not it's we're not as known as I wish we were and that's another reason why I um am presenting to you all today so you guys can know that we are here and that we are trying to make a difference even if it's little by little great I have a question what motivated you to this I mean what was your motivation behind it really yeah okay so I had one of my friends who was a previous uh student here he kind of brought me into it he was like well I'm like I do this and I think you

003would enjoy doing this and both of my parents smoke so I've been ingesting secondhand smoke since I was like two I've been it was it wasn't my choice to ingest that and get my lungs are damaged because of somebody else's decisions and it's like on certain studies Pro that secondhand smoke is can be more damaging than initial smoke and it's just I'm trying to get it so other kids don't have to go through this or that there's other choices rather than well my parents do it so I have to do it too like what's the point like my lungs are already messed up it doesn't matter but it does and it's just I wantan to I want kids to be able to prioritize their health and not just go along with what Society thinks is

004cool or what it should happen or shouldn't happen thank you it's a great message MH absolutely just a comment as your former teacher I'm super proud of you that you're up there doing this this is intimidating and you rocked it absolutely really good thank you thank you D great job all right well that's going to be a tough act to follow well we make Mr would go next then we're going to do our celebrating WCA so we've uh I guess one of the things sometimes I get my nose a little bit onto the grindstone we forget why we're here doing all the great things that we have our students doing in this past school year has been uh quite successful for our students and staff of all the things that I think about it's added

005maybe a few challenges here and there trying to figure out class or school calendars and things but for good reasons so I think we just would like to take some time tonight and probably try to do this more regularly I think um so people can see what's going on in our buildings and especially all those positive things I think Mr wood and all of our admin team have said we have great great people here and great students and and we've tried to highlight some of those things throughout the our board meetings but tonight we're going to take an opportunity I think Mr fos Ling's got a long list of accolades for some of our athletes and activity PE people and and I think Mr wood you're going to start with one of our staff members

006I am going to start and prior to that I think that this um presentation here is a great example of how many awesome students we have in our building that maybe you know we don't see necessarily in sports or in some other things but we got have a wonderful student body of kids that are really really competent and going to do great things and sometimes it's easy to forget that in the shuffle and the day-to-day grind but um you know and we also have a great staff and I'm kind of excited you guys probably have heard this already but I want to um congratulate Mr swatski he was named the uh CTE Carl Perkins community service award winner for this past school year which is a really big deal um so he was nominated and

007selected above other candidates from Minnesota and so now he will advance to the Region Three competition which is um competing against candidates from other states um Illinois Indiana Iowa Missouri and Wisconsin so this a this is a pretty amazing accomplishment and a testament to all the hard work we know Mr swasi is a rockstar does a ton of really really good things for our school and our students so it's nice to see him be acknowledged for some of this work um Mr have anything to add anything I'm forgetting about that no all of these award applications that have been going through from this Association most what I talk about is the community and the school district administrator support that's none of this would happen all the yeses um and I will give a little shout

008out to Claire when CLA hired me that was a big First Step that was a big leap was thinking about this outside of a contract where you're just teaching all day but you could be reaching the community members so I appreciate the fact that we've been able do that for eight years and now we're going to continue to gr career in a big way next year awesome good work Mr sansky the only thing I know because of you now I know anytime I hear commissioner Tom Anderson right Tom Peterson Tom Peterson now I know who he is because of you because you brought him in that day so I've seen him more on recently than I've seen in a long time but I was think of you when I think of him Mr fosen all

009right so I I have on top of uh Mr wood list I have a very long list of some of the accomplishments from our coaches our teams and uh some of our students here so far we we are lucky enough to have one of our our Stand Out people here miss Kier giry our triaa award winner Ben by was also a AAA Award winner I'm going to read you a long list so please just just bear with me here uh our onea play are first in the subsection second in the section uh our football was section 6A runner up Marshall dwey and Izzy pakowski were our local Excel winners uh Lydia sweep was a participant in the state a girls tennis uh tournament Carter cheso plays 14th and the class a state cross country meet

010Missy felene was a section 6A volleyball Coach of the Year our volleyball team won section 6A and placed third at the state tournament Maya fosin has a th career basketball points in counting Ben by a th000 career basketball points and Counting Addison Staples a th000 career basketball points and Counting and Macy gross a th000 career basketball points in counting I don't know if too many schools can say they have four active people with a th000 points or more so that's pretty incredible uh our kns wrestling team won section 6A um and was a state tournament participant Freddy Munoz was a runnerup at uh heavyweight and he participated in the individual tournament Brody Bronco was a runner up at 107 pounds he participated in the state individual tournament Evan dingwall was a champion at 127 pounds

011he participated in the individual tournament Nathan breor 114 pound champion section 6A participant in the individual tournament Ezekiel secer champion at 189 pounds uh participant in the individual tournament Hunter Gro champion at 152 pounds participant in the individual tournament Owen guo champion at 139 pounds at Place fourth in class A Jeremy blasik champion at 215 pounds um is he behind me yeah thanks Jeremy for making it you couldn't have find that any better uh again champion at 215 pounds in section 6A play six at the class a tournament Jake RoR section 6A assistant wrestling coach of the year Brandon Gro section 6A wrestling coach of the year and our girls basketball team is in the section 6A Championship on Friday it's our fourth team in the section finals this year and that's that's pretty incredible

012so I mean this list could be longer yet I mean we're only halfway through the school year so that's quite an accomplishment for our students our coaches our student athletes our just our our students in general so kudos to the work they put in and we have one more Mr fosen is the subsection 21 region 6A activities director of the year so it's just all kinds of accolades going on but I think it just shows the great work like I said I think sometimes we get busy in the dayto day and forget that we're here for all these great things and we got a lot of great things going on at WCA a lot to be proud of and today choir did take us Superior rating today sucess one act took play first in the

013subsection here and then took second in the section so possibly the best play I've ever seen it was incredible as musical this fall so yeah a good one yeah there's a lot of good things going on great work keep it up awesome well Mrs Hendrix now you got to follow that I know I talk about awesome things happening in our elementary school um thank you guys thank you we had over 94% of our families attend conferences and um which is great even with sign having moving to the parents signing up if we still had such a high um a High attendance rate so that's it's always good just to spend the time connecting reflecting on progress so far and all the goals setting looking at the goals that were set at the beginning of the

014year how are we doing and then um continue to set goals for the end of the year both PTO provided meals which is always grateful our teachers always grateful for that as it's um you know goes into the evenings we had Book Fairs at each building again I don't have exact dollar amounts yet I had asked and and those sales numbers weren't weren't in at the time of my report but it's just beneficial to have that money coming back into both libraries and next year we I had talked with um one of our Paras who does the book there and we consider just maybe going back to one in the fall just to help with um you know families to knowing that it's it's extra money that they're putting out but um that's a consideration

015that we're thinking about potentially just moving to one book book fa next fall and then again just thanks to parents for learning a new system for signing up it always can be a change when it's been something we've been doing for a while but I had heard good things and we had a High um attendance rate again so it's just appreciated that transition into doing the online sign up from the parent side we are excited that our preschool and kindergarten evening is coming up the end of March so we have the 24th will be our preschool and kindergarten open house at North and then South is the following day on March 25th and then our structure will kind of be doing a welcome introducing the staff who's there we'll have the prechool and kindergarteners be

016able to go look into classrooms and see where um where they'll be next year and then Megan and I will do some presentation to the adults that come with and then just making sure paperwork's completed and getting some of that registration stuff done we had our early out today um we continue to do work through letters training for our classroom teachers are reading reading intervention teachers and special education it's always good to take that learning and build on what we have been and continue to um see how that fits in with our our current curriculum and and keep getting more knowledge about that science of reading and and continue to incorporate that into our practices music and fied did some work today on curriculum um across buildings and then Preschool teachers had an opportunity to

017sign up for training through the West Central initiative Foundation The Early Childhood initiative um for conscious discipline training so they're working through that and have I've heard good things from them about about that training at um North they finished the heart challenge through the American Heart Association and you can see that North students raised almost $10,000 so that's awesome um for their kids heart Challenge and Mr W is a good sport and he had some surprises come his way which included eggs and silly string and um so that was a fun part of our assembly that he he just hyped that up to make sure kids were excited about the money that had been raised and then self will be doing their heart challenge March 17th through the 28th and then lastly we had um

018we just want to celebrate all the positive things happening in our buildings and we do um or had an assembly last month and that was focus on kindness which was fitting because February is also National kindness month and we um celebrate students one do a students of the month celebration so teachers recognize students who kind of go above and beyond with kindness in addition to our weekly recognition of students who are doing our night pride of kindness um safe being safe respectful and responsible questions for me how is the letters curriculum is it we're half a year into this now do you I do you feel like people are is it going well is it yeah I think you know it's really about teaching about the science of reading so teachers it's it's supporting the

019knowledge that teachers have in order to then better work with Implement our curriculum with students so making sure that teachers have the knowledge to be successful in implementing the curriculum and I think it's going really well I've heard great things it's it's a lot to take in it's a lot of information um it really is but it's good information and it's all um it's all good practices and some things it's like oh we've been doing this and so let's continue building on that or how do we maybe change and practice that now that we know better we do better so there's a lot of good information that we that we build on to make sure then we just shift as needed um through what we've already been doing or continue to build on things that

020we have been doing and then we have another round of of letters next year so it's um it's a lot of information but it's really good and I've heard positive things so far good all right any other questions and that will thank you that will bring us to Mr wood all righty um kind of in the vein of focusing on positive things this isn't necessarily in my report but wanted to highlight a couple of other things that we're doing if you follow our Facebook page we are um we have what we call the lantern of learning and this is pass from sta staff member kind of acknowledging all the hard work and dedication that our staff um do every day and so each staff member that receives it then passes it on to the next

021person the next week with a note and kind of an acknowledgement that then we put on social media we are also um have um brought back students of the month and we are picking um our leadership team then picks from nominees from staff um so staff nominate students over the course of the month we select at the end of the month and then present um students of the month and my thing I've been doing is I've been finding ginormous candies and presenting that because they're a big deal so we had big Kit Kats the first month and then we had a um giant gummy bears that we handed out yesterday for our students of the month and then the last thing is so it's like Mr Brown said it's so easy to always focus on

022kind of the negative and you know right as humans we're predisposed to do that um but I encourage staff and I've been trying to send out several positive notes a week to parents U and just you know compliment them on the awesome students that they have and the good things that they have going on at school um and staff has been doing that as well so just little ways that we can kind of hopefully inject some positivity into everything because it's you know especially in winter in Minnesota that's hard sometimes um but other things going on as you know we talked about already lots of busy activities um you know winter sports who've had one act knowledgeable has been doing very well um speech is also been working very hard um and we're very proud

023of all of the hard work that our students and staff put forward into our extracurriculars and activities um we did Focus today in our PD on ways to track student participation and encourage students that are maybe not participating in things how can we get them to be more involved what are maybe some areas that were missing of you know clubs or activities that we want to look at introducing into our school um Mr fine will probably talk about this as well but spring Sports start next Monday already which is crazy um but looking forward to another season and who knows what will happen there um we also have several Bandon Choir concerts coming up over the next couple months as we wrap up the school year um we did have winter conferences as well same

024dates as Caitlyn talked about you know at the high school we're always looking for ways to make conferences more effective and meaningful um to for students parents staff everyone involved um always welcome feedback or suggestions if anyone has ideas for what we want conferences to look like at the secondary level just because it's very different than what it looks like at the elementary level our sixth graders currently are in deep partage on left today for their class trip they'll be there until Friday and this experience is a pretty neat opportunity for students at are school um and they you know have Hands-On learning opportunities they're able to kind of study some Environmental Education up close and personal work on their outdoor skills and teamwork and it's it's a pretty neat opportunity for kids to be

025able to participate in and then looking ahead um right now we're exploring some options for expanding our online learning at the school um this you know as as we've talked about in Prior meetings online learning is a very popular Trend in schooling right now um so we're considering some models right now Lake Park aabon and Detroit Lakes have very successful online models that allows their students to stay in their district and then still graduate from their school district but do some of their learning or all of their learning online um so going to continue look looking at what the you know best way maybe to implement some of these ideas in our school is um it's in still in its infancy we're we are nowhere near having a final plan for what that would look

026like but definitely considering ways to maybe provide more services to our students and then Staffing update we currently have openings and interviews scheduled for high school English and AD any questions for me all right thank you Mr fosen yeah it's been pretty quiet in my office so I I don't have anything to record um I don't know if if this is really out so much in the public but the new State High School numbers have been out on at least our desk from the ad side um our new preliminary number puts us at 197 uh indications are that we'll keep us at class a um I do anticipate this being our highest number for the next couple counts because we will be working in a a lower enrollment grade into that count so I don't

027think unless things drastically change I I don't see us going up a class anytime anytime soon so those numbers fluctuated the last is that is the count number is that change at all or just our number it really kind of moves around based on the State High School League policy if you're a two class board or a three or four then depending on all the schools in there and where everybody body kind of shuffles that number usually fluctuates within about a handful so but looking at the numbers I've seen I don't I don't think we have anything to worry about uh we'll know here in the next month what sections look like um I I do anticipate a little movement there because there are some schools that have gone up gone down and how those

028all kind of play out then from there the state will will start to kind of piece everything together then we'll work from the region committee to get everybody set where they need to go but I like I said I do think there will be some subsection changes when that's all established then we move to District football after that so could be a busy spring on our end just to kind of get all those pieces done so the next thing here I have is we we are as Mr Woods said we are nearing the start of spring Sports season which feels very odd um seems like winter did cruise by a little bit um we are still looking for a couple coaching positions so we're looking for junior high baseball in particular uh in the softball

029opening so if we have some people there please let me know there is a a track position that we think we may have some leads on as well we're always looking for umpire so if you know people who can umpire um I will probably put something out via social media asking for umpires as well um we did have some success with that last year it's people said hey I can do a game or two that's really all we need I I'm not going to ask you to ire every game but if you can help about one or two games here and there that would be great so look for that as we get the snow off the ground and the frost out of the ground and get the kids outside playing and then we'll move

030towards filling that a little bit more um we did talk about spring practices they they are set to start March 10th and March 17th um that still depends on Jim Jim bace with basketball still playing and hopefully basketball can continue to play and those dates can be pushed back a little bit so some upcoming events speaking of basketball our boys do host a playoff game here tomorrow um understand that a section rates you're going to play pay at 10 and five so those those rates are kind of out out of our control but that's what they are um as we mentioned large group choir was today uh knowledgeable sub regions is next week on Tuesday Fergus Falls large group band is Wednesday next week at Morris we do have a choir concert scheduled here on

031Thursday March 13th and a band concert here on Monday March 17th the West Central conference speech meet is scheduled for March 20th at minowa the state ad conference is St in St Cloud March 25th through the 27th and the region 6A Visual Arts contest is in Battle Lake on March 28th so even though we may be winding down one season March is still a very busy month with other activities as well all right what I got any questions any questions from can is there an age requirement can students like say the a senior age student like are they able to off like Junior High games or anything like that would prefer they're out of school but um that is really a local decision on I on our part so again prefer they're an adult but

032I I mean we might be at the Liberty that we can go with kind of whoever so are we encouraging our it's something that I know some of the other schools are doing and part of their curriculum is helping doing doing like an officiating class yeah because they there's such a need for it and it's like a pretty good summer job for students when they leave here and a way for them to stay in contact with the game if they don't play anymore and a lot of our coaches talk about giving back to the sport that that that you in as an athlete here and is if that's the Avenue Great there maybe other avenues but you're right that could be one way to do that it would be nice to see them be able

033to get started here just so that because once you leave you maybe kind of don't forget about you know but if it's an elective something that they can do here get started out and I think that'd be a good idea might alleviate some of your issues well we all know and maybe we even saw firsthand just recently some of the officials and umpires that are around so do you have to censor that you have to censor that so you don't get I don't want you to get in trouble I don't think anything I don't think anything was said so good good point there I like that idea I mean I think especially if we could do a class and give some kids some opportunity I think that's a great idea started doing something that comes

034up every now and then in like the email chain be worth it probably reach out to some schools that are doing it and see what that looks like it would probably be a PE elective so I actually think there is maybe you can look into it but I think there is a Miss City High schoolly like webinar coming up here in they us offer something to into I know when when I was in the classroom years ago you could get some supplies from them at a very discount rate I don't know if that's still there um but yeah yeah there's the whole curriculum page right on the state schag I think they're doing a webinar I think it's this month I want toly it's like all right any other questions that moves us on to

035miss dots all right mine's kind of all over place um but that's my job in a nutshell um so first off in early February I got to go to the Mesa conference so Elementary School principal conference um super cool meeting up with a lot of Elementary School principles um one cool connection is the first table I sat at was with all the Rockridge principles so we got to talk about things that we talked about at the community task force meeting and I got to ask him you know how do that slide work going out you know just it it was super cool um and there was a lot of different really good professional development sessions that I went to um and look forward to bringing that back to our schools um Community ad stuff um

036kind of all over the board March steam is starting up in both schools um huge thank you to our co-ed volleyball teams for playing us with us this season um Red River ended up winning um and then again big thank you to all my high school workers if they don't come then it doesn't happen so super thankful for them um something new and exciting uh I've been working with A+ Driving School um and we are bringing drivers ed back in house in person this summer at WCA um again we're offering that here it's not just for WCA students I've had a couple parents from surrounding areas call and ask hey my kid attends wherever and can they still come the answer is yes um we'll be sending out flyers soon working with Pete there to

037flush that out um so again the inperson class will be in June they do still have online options for those that want still want that um again parent choice there um and then Super exciting that he's willing to work with us to bring behind the wheel back here also so if you've had students go through that you know as a parent you basically have to take a whole day off of work because they drive at 10: over an Alec for two hours and then by the time you come back here your whole day is shoed um so I mean it was preo when we offered it last so hopefully this fall um for sure one day maybe more depending on interest he'll come here and have kids drive with him during the school day to

038take that load off of parents so super excited about that um wcwc is so West Central wrestling club um Mr guo doesn't take any time off that's uh registration is open online and it's starting here soon um let's see preschool registration and daycare registrations that's a big one um those will be online and opening up March 14th um kcraft has mailed home uh letters detailing all of the different sections when that um when that opens up the times all that good stuff um and it's posted on Facebook as well and in the Grant County heral um so we'll register online on March 14th and then as Kaitlyn had mentioned we have a kickoff to preschool in kindergarten night on the 24th and the 25th um we've got some unique scenarios uh this year with preschool

039so hopefully we'll get kind of a good number on March 14th of where we're sitting and then we can flush those things out for March 24th and 25th just to give you guys kind of an idea um we've had we've had a lot of discussion on preschool programming um at the administrative level and with our preschool teachers because they they know the ins and outs of what works best what won't work I mean I can have a great idea and they can tell me no way that's never going to work um so again lots of conversation um at South we're projecting about 13 kindergarten connection students um and then little nights it's really hard to know because as you know three-year-olds they could be ready for preschool they might not be able to go you

040know we've got potty training in there just developmentally again parent choice so again that has a range of about six to 15 we we really don't know um but that's taking a look at our census information looking at um older siblings of families that we have we put a lot of work into that census list to try and get those numbers as as close as possible um so with those numbers we'd be looking at one Karden connection section and one little nights section um and then on the flip side at North uh kindergarten connection anywhere from 20 the low and to 25 26 um so again two sections there and then little nights is where I'm really thrown for a loop because our census numbers are at 47 um which is great um but again

041with three-year-olds we don't know what that all 47 will come we'll see um so hopefully on March 14th we'll get a better idea on that one um do you want me to go into details on potential Solutions of sure yeah okay so um thinking through at South um a potential solution again nothing uh solidified yet would be looking at that one section as a Tuesday Thursday every other Friday so nothing different than what we've done in the past just eliminating that Monday Wednesday option and then the Monday wednes day every other Friday would be little nights dayss and extending that out an hour so right now it's 8:15 to 11:15 Monday Wednesday Friday I know this is hard to follow um but if we added that hour we'd make back those three hours with that

042every other Friday so it would be 8:15 to 12:15 Monday Wednesday every other Friday so it would be a change um some pros to that is we could feed our kiddos lunch um so as a parent that I mean that's def a definite Pro um they they get lunch get some recess in there you got to weigh the pros and cons of is that too much time is it not um so again leaning on our preschool teachers for that and then depending on our um little nights numbers at North uh we might need to take a look at some other Solutions and maybe we add a Tuesday Thursday section because we definitely don't want to turn kids away um those are our future kindergarten kiddos um and big numbers are great so we'll we'll adapt

043and we'll roll with it depending on what M what March 14th brings would you have space space if you so right now um we only have little nights Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays okay we have an AM and a PM at North currently so I mean again we haven't flushed everything out but in my head if we do a Tuesday Thursday um we could use that existing room that is sitting open currently during those days so again not not solidified but a potential option if the numbers show need there because we don't want those sections to be too crazy big either when you when you have 18 plus three year olds that's that's that's a lot to juggle so sometimes one's a lot to juggle yeah agree all right let's see um and then kind of

044going more on the daycare end of things um I am working with first children's Finance um to kind of do a financial analysis of our child care programming at North we've heard a lot of fun for Stuff um and how we can flush that out um so first they're going to do a rate analysis with me of all the other child carees in the area and to make sure we're sitting where we should be there um and then looking into the costs that we're incurring food cost you know that's breakfast lunch snack um obviously salaries and everything else that goes into that um it's complex because we have wraparound which is our preschool programming care so during the day care then we have before school care and we have after school care and all of

045those rates are differently and rates are different and then even the wraparound care rates are different based upon a three-year-old's programming and a four-year-old's programming because they attend daycare different hours based upon how much they're in preschool um so it's it's quite complex um and also looking at summer care in there too um you guys might have seen out on Facebook I sent or I put a um survey out there to families uh the past couple years uh last year we had 13 full-time kids um and even then that wasn't necessarily consistently full-time kids um and then the year before we had 14 so uh what's complex about that is regardless of numbers I need to staff at all times because we come we have the kids come and go with Summer W activities and

046there's just a lot of scheduling that goes into summer care um so even if we were lower than 10 um the threshold is a one to 10 adult to student ratio that we have to abide by um even if it's lower than 10 I still have to have two staff um last year we had the summer food program at North which helped with cost um because in previous years we've had to purchase meals through the hospital which obviously comes at more of a cost than um the summer food program um but really taking a look at what are our numbers at um I've had 16 responses so far of those 16 I have eight that um are willing to commit to full-time one of which is only in the month of June so release seven

047all throughout then a lot of people would like Drop in care here and there um but we can't bake a program off of that unfortunately right um because $170 a week versus a drop in here and there it doesn't pay salaries um so again it's still early I just put that out on Monday um so Mr bro and I will be looking at that and analyzing that moving forward um again weighing pros and cons um and going from there uh let's see I think that was all oh um also soon I'm going to be sending out a survey with Summer Transportation I met with Kayla a little bit um I've I had Christine this past summer um keep track of how many kids rode the bus um for summer ball so we provided transportation to

048and from practices and to games um and the buses were not full uh I think at most we would have nine kiddos on a bus um where I Str struggle is that's really expensive but I also know that some of those kids if we don't have transportation won't go um so again weigh pros and cons so we'll send out a survey there to kind of see where we're at maybe van might be an option um so really everything's on the table just want to get um a better picture of where we should be spending our um money again all of that um really hinges on donations and we have a phenomenal uh community that supports our summer rec programming which I'm super super thankful for um lastly which these guys kind of sparked my memory

049on that um I just finished up with the staff spotlights on our school Facebook page so if you guys have any other ideas that you kind of want me to if you see other schools doing some something that you would like on Facebook you let me know um and I'd be happy to run with it are Faceook cont yeah part yes y interim heavy on the interim right Megan yeah I mean I I really am having tons of fun of it I got a lot of feedback on the staff Spotlight that they so I sent out a Google form and they could choose whether they would like to be featured or not and if they did that's fine um so if you have any other ideas um on all years so Schoolboard Spotlight okay we

050could do that if you want to sure sure could everybody that's available I that's everything does anyone have any questions I'll get you a list to who's ready for that yeah I'll yeah please do absolutely with that um driver's education Y is there going to be a cap on how many students can go to that or um as of right now we're not really projecting that we're g to get tons um I have the auditorium reserved so we I mean we could house a lot of kids um but I I do think that it it will kind of be a mindset shift of we've gotten used to online this first year we kind of got to get it rolling I don't foresee tons and I could be wrong um but maybe once we plant that

051seed more kids will want to go that route okay so right now there is not a cap okay would we guarantee West Central Area students if we do get to a point is that would that be a concern where we'd have to guarantee definitely start limiting if we need to um but I posted it online I don't know how long ago now um and we have some interest but nothing like overwhelmingly like this is getting again I think it's again a mindset shift it's online is a lot easier and especially if you have busy kids I I get it there's there's pros and all right any other questions thank you that brings us to Mr mcnamer um as far as uh testing side of things go we are currently started with our access testing that

052is our elll testing throughout the district um we have MCA testing coming up the second half of April uh the science test which is taken by grades five8 and 10 is a brand new version of the science test that finally reflects the 2019 changes to the state standards um there will be some changes to a little delay but there will also be some changes to the styling of questions so within that I haven't seen much of it yet but there's more interactive questions that the kids will be able to do almost like little they claim little science experiment experiments but I'll wait until I see it to make my judgment um the ACT we are doing online this year we talked about the the window we have selected is April 22nd through May 2nd so

053that gives us a two-e period throughout that twoe period we plan to offer two to three different sessions for kids to sign up for to make sure that it fits their needs um the ACT online we still have to do it all in one day like we do with a traditional one however it gives us more flexibility if the kids have a uh conflict on the day that we offer um so if we do pay pencil we are required to do it on a single National testing day with doing it online on our computers it's runs through the exact same program the Pearson Testing program that the MCA runs through so it's going to look very familiar to the students um just a lot longer tests than than the MCA um as far as technology

054goes We are continuing to have issues with fishing emails um it it's I got a call from somebody in North Carolina yesterday that one of our accounts is fishing their um their District so the the challeng is everybody is chasing it around trying to figure out what's going on we continue to make changes and tweak things here and there eventually something will get figured out however the challenges is these very intelligent people are putting way too much effort into wrongdoing when they could probably solve a lot of world problems if they would just focus their attention um devices we're kind of back in the wild west as far as buying devices it almost not quite as bad but it's almost like preco like the the co area bu of buying devices I have some salesman

055that I will have an appointment to talk to and something changes with uh tariffs or whatever it is they won't they'll posto our meeting because they can't get any prices um the only prices I can get is they have devices sitting in warehouse and I have to buy them like right now so it it's it's pretty challenging but I have a couple different options that we're looking at going down one of the changes that may end up happening just with the quite large price increase in devices is that we may end up having to change the the way we do our device repair we may have to bring it inhouse which would eat up a significant ific amount of time and that would just force us to kind of reprioritize the technology department um it's

056all possible we have the ability to do it in-house however that would um you know you look at the amount of time that we have fixing devices it could potentially eat up 25 to 30% of the time we currently have working on other things right now so it would it would force some shifting um but like I said will continue to gather information and once I actually have numbers I'll to Paul let let uh him kind of work through it we did finish up our uh window for the um for our form 470 which is part of the rate program and this year the only thing we're going out for is the uh internet and the uh data connection between the schools I chose not to go for anything more than that just because this

057funding is not always we're we're back in the wild west of whether or not we're going to get what's promised to us sometimes so um we try to keep it simple this year um and then also just wanted to say thank you to Stacy she is fantastic she was gone on vacation which was wonderful for her horrible for me I am selfishly very happy that she's back all right any questions from Mr mcare how about our device abuse is that going down at all um you know it yes and no um our breakage rates is actually decreasing right now the challenge is is we do have some kids that will just come in and say I threw it and it broke or so and so just picked it up and dropped it and it's just

058it's lack of um just lack of care and those some of those soft skills that you know it it goes beyond just the devices as well and that's one of those pieces where how do you take those soft skills that we've never really had to teach in school and find a way to shove them into teach them in school now um not not always easy um I usually have a nice awkward conversation with most kids when they come in and have them explain to me why they felt it was acceptable to do that um some kids that will do the trick and take care of it other kids they just smile and say see you next week not actually but I mean all right thank you Mr nber buildings and grounds well I'm going to

059stay on that same theme with the great students and stuff that we we have here um through the years I've been very appreciative to have Tas and the Tas that I've had are are very helpful to my department um especially when we have people that are sick or something like that or I got snow days that I need to lean on them a little bit they do very well been some really good kids um which leads me into our point now that I'm down three staff and we're running real thin and ragged uh I just want to put a shout out to my crew for trying to do what they can and try and keep up on what we can um I know things aren't as Tip Top as they can be but we're we're

060doing the best we can with what we have at this point I have a interview for tomorrow that's set up and then I have another one that just came across my desk today that I'm going to try and set up for Monday or Tuesday of next week so we can keep our fingers crossed that maybe we can get a couple here to help keep us going until we can get everything filled up um um and if you know anybody anybody wants a job you we got a great place for them indoors don't have to worry about the weather all the equipment's provided don't have to bring anything your own boy it's really sounding good isn't it um buildings and grounds we've been meeting um I've been waiting for some numbers to come back like Kevin

061said having trouble getting numbers I've kind of been having the same issue trying to get some numbers together to take to the buildings and grounds so we can get everything in a in a nice neat order to bring to the board for you guys um we have that meeting tomorrow so like I said in my report I hope um at our next meeting our next board meeting that we're at that we'll be able to have stuff laid out um to give to you I have had a couple of things just uh for knowledge that I've had to fix over the last couple weeks in this building um valves on water lines um uh faucets you know just again things are 30 years old um we had a ball valve up in the penthouse above my

062office that just cracked open because it's 30 years old started leaking um took us a couple days to track it down but found out that that's one of the new leaks that was created in the kitchen so we were able to correct that um so yeah we're just constantly chasing chasing things and trying to get to them and and get them repaired as quickly as possible the last aspect is um this time of year sucks for trying to keep the heat in the buildings South isn't too bad because we have the electric boiler down there that is not really large but with these milder temperatures it does maintain South pre evenly north um I'm shutting those off at 10:00 at night and sometimes turning them back on at 4 in the morning and stuff just

063to try and keep things regulated there just because it's a bigger building the boilers are much bigger so that's that's a battle on my end but we we're trying to work through it and I hope that every year I get a little more proficient at it so I don't I get it before I get the phone calls is what I'm working for all right up the good work question how much time does it take for you to train in a new staff member like how long how long does it take how much of your time does it take the train in a new one how long does it take for them to be comfortable in the position to be able to go on their own depends on what kind of background they come with I've

064I've had a couple that you know I I can take an hour two hours of my own time go through what we have what we do and then I usually try and match them up with somebody that's already in that area so that they can work together for a couple days a lot of times um if they don't really have any experience it might take two days working together with somebody else and then I keep checking on the progress keep talking with them keep in contact um if they come with uh I've had a couple that I've come with experience I mean yeah you basically show them up to God kind of tell them the method what I how I want it done and how I want it to look when it gets done you

065know we all know there's more than one way to get to the end but as long as we get to the end and it's it's clean like we need um some of them it's taking a day they work with somebody and then they kind of check back and forth for a couple days and then I mean boom they're gone on average I I don't expect them to have a routine down and get everything taken care of for at least a couple weeks sometimes a month is you know it's even if you clean before um to get in a routine and sometimes teachers are here sometimes they're not and you know just to kind of click with everybody and and get things figured in you know I tell them I don't expect everything for at least

066a two to three weeks before then we'll start reiterating okay we need to we need to come up with a different game plan my other question is from what you know of maybe District's our size or whatnot but what do you feel like the turnover is for our district in in this specific job do you think it's high as low do you think it's average for other districts like ours I would say it's probably average um there's a couple districts that have some people that have been there for several years but they're at that point that they've got maybe two three years left or something like that so as soon as that happens when they start retiring I I can see that those districts are going to have the same issue I mean we've had

067what three and a half weeks we've had stuff out for fory about that the two applications I've gotten is all I've gotten I mean so it's what what out there is catching it that we're not getting the applications or are they catching something you know is is there something we need to do on our side to make it more flowery I I don't know um where's the ad go well we've had it on indeed and I'll tell you right now the last two and a half years I get the same applications every time we throw something up and and I'm I'm the couple that I have gotten from indeed that I've called that have come in yeah they can they they've been able to talk but they've not been able to walk um so we

068went out on Canary it's on the Facebook page did you go one other place no just classic the classic Canary was the CU that reaches a few more um sools is expensive yeah I think we looked at that a while back while Chrissy was here and it was fairly expensive and even like the jobs HQ I think that's like $1,200 we we've at the city we've had the best Lu when okay without a doubt but I also know that that's it's pretty expensive you kind of got to get the your best pay your fck that's radio just seems to like it reaches people that aren't looking for a job they know somebody that is looking for job communicate see that seems to be the what we've seen but I also know that it's it's not

069cheap but if we're at average and we're not I mean you know talking with other people it it everybody's always kind of looking for somebody you know everybody's always looking um I know Mr brono and I talked about that we do some reaching out and some checking onet Mark Market comparison to see if there's something there that we have to adjust in this round of negotiations for hourly wag or something like that cuz I think our biggest challenge this last the last two people we hired are the first two that have left as well so it's I mean your your longstanding people are still here doing a great job it's we got to figure out and that's what I'm also afraid of I mean I'm you know trying to pull as much as I can

070which has pulled me away from my desk I mean you know I'm in here at 5:30 in the morning and I the other day vacuumed nine rooms and I'm cleaning bathrooms this morning I cleaned all the bathrooms and so not that that bothers me I like the variety of the job that's that's why I'm here but it pulls me away from other stuff too and you know it just stretches everybody and the people I do have you know I I have some really good ones and I I don't want to continue to stretch them and end up losing them too then we're just going to be you know that that hole just gets bigger I mean it's you know it's a vious circle Mr fosen said he hasn't been busy lately I got he might

071one you want to tap for some bathrooms yeah we'll work on that maybe we can take all right I want to drive the cart that's all okay you and all the kids it's called the Zamboni they want to drive the zamb all right anything else from Mr Norberg all right that brings us to our business manager Mr netski are you there Todd I am here all right good evening everybody I'm going to share my screen here um all right we'll get right after it so the past few weeks Paul Magie and I have been working on the um building the preliminary budget for next year so we have numbers to share so um for next year revenues are looking like they'll be at 12,290 27 and expenditures of 12,138 770 so that a little better

072than a balance budget we'll be adding 151,939 to fund balance and that will take our overall fund balance from 3.25 one million to three 3.4 million and the $151,000 gain and fund balance is made up of a increase in4 1,000 in the restricted areas and the unassigned fund balance is going up by 10,705 to m106 and that would be a fund balance percentage of 14.37% all right can you hear me okay Paul we can hear you yep all right so how do we get there so of course there's a lot of unknowns for next year so we have to make assumptions uh both on the revenue side and the expenditure side so some of those key assumptions are um enrollment about 70 75% of our revenue is driven by enrollment so um we determined uh

073came up with an enrollment projection of 699 in grades K through 12 and an additional 18 uh ADM m is made up of 10 Early Childhood kids and eight voluntary prees so total adms projected at 717 for next year um also just in the last week uh the department of Ed notified us that we will get a little more than the minimum on the formula so instead of the formula increasing by 2% it's actually going to go up 2.74% and I just did some quick Ma at extra 74% equates to about 41,000 in new revenue for us or $53 per ADM so that was some good news and then also we have two other uh significant state aid items or state aid uh funding streams if you will special ed state aid and compensatory Revenue

074uh special ed for fy2 the current entire is at 1.6 million and that's an estimate that what we're going to receive we received a little over 1.3 million and FY 24 so we've budgeted conservatively in between those numbers at 1.45 million for FY 25 and then grew that number for FY 26 so if we truly get the 1.6 million that's going to be a little bit of a windfall uh for us for both FY f y 25 and then that would likely carry in FY 26 so uh possible good news there unfortunately we won't know that number that final number until next January February so um we'll have to go with our estimate until that point in time um the other piece that's up in the air is compensatory Revenue so uh the state a

075couple years ago during covid changed how our free and reduced students identified which resulted in an increase in that Revenue um and now it's for FY 26 it's set to go back to the old formula which would result in 60,000 less revenue for us in FY 26 and there is um I know there's a lot of noise on it I believe the legislature is looking at holding us harmless on that um so we've budgeted at the lower number um and if the legislature does Hold Us harmless that would be an increase of 60,000 so some potential good good news on a couple of those items and then on the expenditure side um of course we have to make estimates for how our expenditures are going to change in FY 26 overall we used an inflationary

076Factor on our line items of 3% as a starting point um Magie Paul and I did do a pretty detailed review um identifying any one-time expenses that won't repeat an FY 26 and we took those out um Paul came up with um Paul and his team came up with 250,000 in reduction so those are factored in um there's also a legislative change for the district contribution to the teacher retirement account um that's going from 8.75% of wages to 9.5 so a 10% increase in that and then also we have a legislative change taking effect January 1 2026 which is the F Paid Family Medical Leave Act which is a 88% of wages um that can be split with the employees um so that's also been factored in so those are really the most significant changes

077unless I missed something Paul um assumptions that we had to make of course we have negotiations coming up next year as well so just trying to factor all those things in but again uh preliminarily adding 151,000 un assigned so all right any questions or Paul any comments Paul you'd like to make as well well I think the one thing just to keep in mind we've kind of talked about as Megan addressed our fund for our community ed fund which is daycare and preschool we know that that fund has a strong negative balance and we need to start addressing that a little bit so I think one of our conversations we had during finance committee was that we need to identify what that dollar amount is for that free preschool that we provide because that's probably

078just going to have to be a a earmarked item in the general funds and know that annually we got to make that transfer because eventually mde or the state is going to say you can't carry a negative balance like that anymore we're going to have to get that cleaned up and right now Todd what are we at 20 20 preliminarily we're projected to go back for the preschool programs 182,183 so this is very preliminary though but um refy 24 Community ad decrease decrease overall by 206,000 uh School Readiness um decline 120,000 and ECF 58,000 so yeah it's about a $200,000 whole if we try to fill that each year so I that's one of the pieces that we have to really look at to see how we're going to address that because it does have

079a places a burden on our general fund but I know years ago the district made that commitment that we were going to offer free preschool and uh and so we just need to really know what that number is so we so we know what we need to transfer over um to to the general fund to take care of that but no I think that's the only piece that I had tdd was just that that that fund four is one that we really need to keep an eye on and I think that's why Megan's doing a nice job of evaluating our daycare programs we know that those services are necessary um but at the same point we got to make sure that we're not losing lots of money in that too is there any way to

080translate that you know we've had the daycare has been going for now eight years or more I mean probably officially you're say I don't think it was I think we started it after I came on the board yeah because wasn't it going for a while I thought Diane told me at one point it was going for a while cost became an issue so they actually suspended it right stopped it and then they we brought it back but I'm just curious if there was a way to translate that into how many kids have stayed or you know how many you know I know we always talk about we want to get them keep them here get them here keep them here is there any way to quantify that I mean I know it would' be difficult

081but yeah you could look at I suppose I mean we have nine full-time kids now that use the wraparound preschool care um and reason being like I can use myself as an example I as a working mom have no way of if I'm over in Kensington bringing my kid out to the daycare that my son goes to you know so having that convenience keeps my own self like right whereas I'm sure other families are in the same boat I I don't want to iend make get over to Alec because that's where my husband works you know like so it is a delicate balance of so I mean I don't know necessarily how to measure that other than the fact that I mean we consistently have about eight nine full-time kiddos that go there do we

082keep that record I mean like can we say okay from eight years ago how many of those kids are now uh you know are now in seventh grade or we don't know if they wouldn't come anyway no right that's what I'm saying but we could at least then if we knew who was there and who's still here we could maybe even we could ask you know did this bring you here and keep you here you know I I don't know I guess I'm just curious I can look back as we talk we have old files that I paper pencil could see if if the problem is in this position there's been a lot of turnover to I mean I can give you solid numbers for the past three years before that need to do some

083digging and right no and again I'm not saying go do a bunch of extra work I'm just it would be just something interesting to know that you know that was kind of the thought when we started it was if we can get people to come here and stay here then we we keep those kids in our district versus going to you know at that time there was other districts that offered the free preschool and we knew that kids were leaving to go there because of that I mean so I like that idea at least anecdotally how did this impact your so we get some pieces I think and I'm not saying we want to cut it off because you're going to come here anyway so I don't need to pay for this but you know

084that'll just be a question another piece we've talked about is transportation being a big um big player in that um where if we transported kids um again that's an expense because at Palmer they don't transport three-year-olds we would need to buy car seats have you know have people trained in that if we have a vehicle available um could that free up some I mean that's another thing we've been looking at too is okay they use the existing family daycares and but we take it upon ourselves to do that transportation to get them there back another thing to explore too I I don't know we put everything on the table I think trying to figure out what's our most cost effective but also knowing that that service needs to be there for some of our families

085otherwise they're going to pull and go someplace else but yeah maybe you could just even look at the families over the last eight years and possibly just put a survey out say hey we're just trying to check and see if this is so specifically rapo not necessarily before and after no I mean I think it's all there right I mean the idea is I mean part of this cost is our yeah pre preschool you know like we're offering in kindergarten too right I mean I think at one time they were charge we were charging for kindergarten as well so before the all the every came in sure that's all you know that was all things that were decided yep hey we want to keep kids here we don't want to charge for that and so

086it' just be interesting to see if there's a way to quantify what we're spending and AR the other districts around us that we're offering it are they still offering it or they for the most part I mean schools are size the majority of them are not charging I mean but when you go to I mean bigger schools are is yeah right there's more school are using as a draw yeah yeah because I'm sure your larger districts probably have not only your inh house preschool but churches have preschools there's other options I mean you have more VPK seats too A lot of them do sliding scale fees based upon income I mean there's a lot of different factors in that well I think you know you go to a bigger town obviously there's more daycare options

087too I mean I'm not saying there is daycare but there's probably more options than what we have so that was part of that reason that that came in too so anyway we'll have uh big preschool thing is going on that car's helping with I wonder getting a round T discussion that with our um kickoff to pre day night yeah I mean we could definitely change makers is that what you're talking about Claire no this she's got a separate event just what what yeah we're doing so in the past we've always just done a kindergarten round of night it's solely been kindergarten we've had a lot of feedback from families on you know this is this prek thing is a big huge step some families have from um so we've Incorporated them now where they're going

088to go look at the rooms meet the teachers and then we're going to give them some more information so they're not going into it blindly because you know sending your three-year-old to school is a big step um so we're incorporating them in that I me we are going to you know talk about the different child care options and stuff like that but that would be a good discussion as to does that sway your decision one way or another and may yeah good ideas okay I know Todd needs to step out so if there's any other questions for he's on vacation in Italy right now so he wants to get Todd and the other I guess the only other thing is we talk about that budget would be the idea was pretty clear from the Auditors

089you know because you see that positive balance after we look at reductions we'll talk about this a little bit later um but clearly remember the auditor saying in December that it was time that we had to stop deficit spending and we need to probably start putting a little bit money back into the account so that's what we're trying to do Todd's got some great software pieces that his company has put together of looking at some fiveyear projections you know on for fund balance and things so I think we'll start to look at that as well but if there's some pieces there that you need of better information to help you make decisions uh let us know but we're grateful to have Todd helping here um to hopefully well in some of our areas that we

090were able to reduce cost one was our audit from a couple years ago because it was such a large expense because we were in transition of business manager and so the Auditors had to do more work there and now having Todd at the helm will he said these expenses will be last so that'll be good all right okay thank you thank you have a good night that brings us to you Mr Brown L okay um well first thing student enrollment you're going to see that our number is 696 students currently right now as of March and those are kind of the numbers that we were going to use to roll forward as we looked at our projections for next year asked our secretaries and admin to review those numbers to see what preliminary enrollments could

091be for next fall um so still kind of holding strong there still surprising that we're below 700 students but that is our reality legislative update the budget forecast is uh set to be released tomorrow the current Vibe is that the difficult budget there will be difficult to have decisions and cuts will be need to be made so we'll see kind of what happens there we have been told as Todd mentioned that we would see that 2.74% so that's the 2% plus that inflation index that they kind of included there so um we believe that that will be included we're really hoping that that um compensatory Aid uh because the $63,000 hit there would be as you can see you take the 109 and just keep backing off dollars that way um and so hopefully that'll

092be that'll be a positive piece there too but I know that things kind of the vibe that we're hearing from some of our um lobing groups is there's definitely no new money and it could be difficult so one of my concerns that Todd does have addressed in the budget is our unemployment is about 85 80 to 85,000 is what it was last year and uh the state allocated a fixed dollar amount and then after that there was no followup money and so we're not sure if that money is going to be if it's already depleted and now it's going to be our responsibility as a district or if there's still some money left so Todd has an expense built in I believe of 80 to $85,000 in the fiscal 26 budget with a revenue of

09355,000 but we're not sure if that Revenue will will be there um I know one of the uh talking points first was is they would allow districts just to go out and Levy those dollars while to go out and Levy another $85,000 sounds pretty easy to the state but we have to go directly to our taxpayers and ask for that money and I mean we have to ask you just Levy for it but it is a huge expense to them already when they're we have tight budgets for households here in the district and so that's one piece there but then it's now recently theyve said they're not going to allow that so the districts would just have to absorb that in their budget I think there'll be more conversation can I I can't imagine what

094a Minneapolis an NOA School District with that would look like for them so I think there'll be some conversation there uh Community task force of course we had to postpone the meeting that was scheduled because of State wrestling as well as we had one U member of the whth team who was not feeling well and so we've got that meeting rescheduled for Monday evening at six o'clock this will really be the meeting where they're going to take those four proposals that were pushed forward uh by the group now they've got those costed out and they'll bring those to the group Monday and really hoping to have a plan to come to some form of consensus uh to bring a recommendation then to the board so the four plans one the first plan is just fixing

095all four sites uh looking at HVAC rough Windows things like that there's no enhancements no remodeling really it's just kind of taking current facilities and and uh getting them kind of taking care of the the infrastructure of those facilities the next plan is looking three sight option again but doing some remodeling and some improvements to those facilities on top of the the just the infrastructure upgrades the next plan was looking at a one-site option um here in Barrett and then that fourth plan was a two-site option one here in barit and one in Elbow Lake so they'll bring those expenses and and uh we're still talking through with them or I am to see what is our plan to try to get to that consensus you know how do we get that figured out so

096we can bring that back I think the last meeting we had there was some real interest a little bit in the indoor playground and I know and we've mentioned it to staff the Paras I mean one of them at our par meeting she just goes no outside on the cold days and I said well if you really wanted to you still could but yeah they were pretty excited about that just I think had some great ideas so I think it allows our staff some opportunity to to come up with some ideas and and so really I think the thing that people need to recognize for Monday as well is there's not going to be a detailed finite plan and they're not going to get into the weeds of oh can we move the the Bus

097drop off if we move the Bus drop off here and if we only had this classroom here and didn't have that they're not engaging in that cuz that's really going to be after we come up with a plan for the board a recommendation that the board would look at that probably with our staff too to come up with a plan that's going to be best there so next Monday I know currently we had Ryan I think and Darren I don't know if that's still going to be the same but um we'll need to have that ready to go for Monday evening at six o'clock and and I don't know if that'll be our final meeting if we'll be able to come to consensus at that point or if it's going to be a matter of

098getting the information having to chew on that a little bit and then saying hey we need to have one more meeting to come up with the recommendation but I know that we're hitting our point of I think with set the number of meetings that they gave us for that price so they may say hey we we do need to come up with something here fairly soon but I don't want to speak for them they may say no we've got more time there buildings and grounds as Chad said earlier we'll meet tomorrow five o'clock we will be done in time for the boys basketball playoff game here uh but really kind of looking at those priorities Chad and I are finishing that agenda but it'll be our kind of our funding priorities and then some of

099that funding um generation ideas there the fire departments uh corporate sponsors those different areas to maybe raise or get some Revenue there uh for those projects school budget as Todd's already went through that so I don't need to touch that one of the negotiations I have reached uh received from our two and I think you did too were included in the email from our two bargaining groups that we have uh Teachers Association so the other ones they have groups that represent are they represent kind of themselves but this is from our asme group which is our 10-month clerical staff and then our teachers group uh they both submitted their desire to negotiate and so I just wanted to make you aware of that I have talked to um the teacher group and said I'd be

100willing to meet with them if the board so desired to just have me start on language I said we could not engage in any financial pieces but they would be willing to do that here at the end of the month of March so if we wanted to get kind of the ball rolling there I would be willing to do that but if you would want excuse me have the committee do that that's fine as well I just know there was frustration the last time not with the board I mean it just took us a while I think of trying to get our finances ready to go and as you can see this time um Todd will have that ready to go we'll have some costing measures and we'll be we'll be ready to move forward

101on that got all the dates listed there of things that are upcoming so it's going to be a busy month of March but that'll be exciting all right any questions questions for Mr Brown then we will move into our consent agenda um we got the following items we're going to have the hires of Lori Summers pair professional Troy Losi head girl softball coach Matt Wagner head boys golf coach and additionally a resignation [Music] forelle hair professional any discussion on those items just U quickly because I know there's always been question sometimes of why are people leaving and Mr wood got a very nice um email from Michelle I'm not going to go into great length or detail but just said hey excellent place to work I really enjoyed it I think it's probably the easiest

102way to summarize it because I there's been concern of well it seems like we have a lot of turnover which we do however there's just so many opportunities out there for people to look at now and and so it's kind of changed that so I just wanted to bring that to your attention because that was another on that another kind of a shortterm piece but it was she nothing regarding the dist rather have kid be at nice thank you now I would look for a motion to accept the consent agenda move and a second all in favor say I I motion carries uh we move on to Old business uh approve the final calendar I'll give you a color copies while it's on your computer too I suppose but uh we did meet as an

103admin team and did come up with a plan here um to look to move those days to Fridays and we're also able to try to keep it consistent uh to be the second Friday of each month with the exception of February we already have a staff uh comp day for conferences so it will be that very first Friday on the 6th so we'll still have our eight twoh hour early or 8 2hour early outs uh so we can take care of letters 2.0 as well as looking at maybe some uh culture climate HRS pieces there to to move forward there so we we'll look at that um we'll mon want to monitor we did have Mr fing kind of look over the schedule we do know that on the 12th that is it um we'll

104start with girls wrestling right so it does kind of work out there but um Claire I think you had made the point of let's just manage and monitor to make sure that we have staff here that they're you know that they're engaged and things like that so we'll we'll kind of track our our membership and attendance and and go from there to and report that back to the board because I guess one of those things I know is we had a meeting with one of our groups just said well you got to make it mandatory well we I think it was said well today that well we pay them to be there so that would be the part that hopefully it's taking care of that but we just want to make sure that we're providing

105high quality professional development because we do see value and importance in that to make sure that we continue to grow in our craft so that was the only thing that I changed was just those adding those Friday early outs second Friday of each month with the exception of February 6th and actually January is going to feel like the first one because we don't have school on Friday the 2 all right any other questions or comments on the calendar approve and a second all in favor say I I I motion carries uh consider and approve um student participation in the Minnesota student survey um grades 589 and 11 can you had some more information on that Paul I did yep did send that out to you earlier but I can quickly pull up that presentation here

106just so you can see there are significant dollars that are associated um with that that the county has received to help provide some of those programs uh my understanding at this time um Ashby is going to uh be taking the survey and I know that Herman was still in the discussion stage the last time that I did talk to them so but let me pull that up here real quick um here is their presentation and I think it was one of the slides down there that kind of laid out talks about the survey and of course you've seen uh one of the sample pieces actually Grant County has one of the better participation uh areas there but I think this is the key that I think there was a question last time is what do

107we see in funding um and so from that survey back in 2013 till now it's roughly 4.6 million dollars in some projects that have helped take care of different things um to address some of those concerns and then I wanted to also show you and I can show you more slides but I think that was the one question was cost and then there was a question about um participation and I do have that here as well uh for our district over since 2013 and that's what shows up on the State website so 13 remember it's offered every three years so you're going to see it seems to be in our fifth grade we have strong participation it does start to WAN just a little bit as you get into eth grade but still fairly strong

108but then 9th and 11th grade there seems to be a little bit and then as you get into 19 and 22 it seems to be a little bit a larger decrease there but it kind of points out where our participation and just to let you know I mean as scientific as this is is on that page it showed you know it said if because if you look at the document you're going to say well well it said there was 40 we had 100% participate that was the total number of students that took the survey then I went through and just looked at our enrollment now I don't know exactly what date that they took the test so the numbers could be off by a couple but I that's as close as I could get to

109give you that information there so does kind of lay that out of where our participation and I think if we go back to that presentation here I thought they showed out of Western Prairie that Grant County had a pretty strong um that's the state and there's the county and you'll see that Grant County I'm in 19 and22 were both 84% in in 19 and 22 was 89% in Western Prairie the highest at least for 2022 Grant County had the highest participation and again this would be something that families would have the opportunity to opt out we would make sure that the information's out there plenty in advance so there's no surprises so families can opt out immediately they can opt out the day of the test and a student can opt out of the test

110the day of and they can opt out of any questions that they want to opt out of so it's very voluntary but I also understand some of the nature of the questions can be concerning Kevin I know you've administered the test is there anything else that I mean as you've administered you see students that just come in and don't take any of the questions or they skip certain ones is there anything that you would want to add to that um no from an Administration part of portion of it it's pretty private for the students um we try and give them as much um ambiguity as possible so that they don't feel like they have to answer something a specific way because we want as accurate of data as possible um after the test sometimes you

111hear kids talking about things so you don't know if it was answered accurately or just to you know how like Middle School boys can be um however I as far as like administering the tests the kids kind of are on their own you never know what questions they're answering what questions they're skipping it's pretty independent okay do the parents see the question before the kids see they they can asked to see the questions before take the or we show it to them uh I think we can have samples at least the experience that I've had is we can have samples in the in the office that they can come and and review the survey I did send it to our state representatives and Senators here and a couple from po districts and they all some

112of them recommended that they said your school district doesn't have to do it um most of them all said it was there was inappropriate questions on there um that they were not aware of the questions that were on it and they were going to look into it with Department of Education and I still have I don't I don't see how sexual asking an eighth grader sexual orientation has anything to do with that money nor does nor do I think that I think the survey a survey is good to find out information to get funding but a lot of those dollars are going to be lobed to come regardless of whether there is a survey or not I do believe in the survey I just don't believe in this one I I don't think we need

113to be asking our eighth graders or 11th graders what their sexual orientation is I don't know how that has anything to do with their education um I don't think it's any of our business I don't care one way or what they are but or how they feel themselves to be but I don't think it's any of our business either I would be fine with us putting together our own survey or pretty much going right off of the survey with minus few questions but the way it sit right now I'm not voting for it and I don't think the majority of our parents if they knew what was in here would would feel like that's appropriate either being as the survey is completely Anonymous and everybody's got multiple opportunities to opt out I I don't see

114what it hurts we're not it's it's questions it's not an instruction manual I mean the these kids already know far more about these kinds of things than we give them credit for um I'm I'm a little bit concerned that we're maybe a little more uncomfortable with the answers we might get instead of the questions and if we don't ask the questions on the rest of the survey how do we know I mean if there are a few questions in there that we don't agree with if we create our own survey is that really going to do any good do we ask ask these questions when we hire somebody are these uh what do you describe your sexual orientation heterosexual asexual do we ask those when we hire somebody here why not because it's not Anonymous

115it is it's not Anonymous when you when you hire an employee you can't ask that you can't ask right but this isn't this is anonymous you you don't know what I answered or what I didn't answer is I guess is the point right I mean it's not it's a statistical information that's what that's why they want put it on a spreadsheet and say these are the numbers that we came up with it's a data point so yeah it might make you uncomfortable or you know you might feel it's inappropriate but at the end of the day as a parent if you feel it's inappropriate then you have every right to tell your kid hey I'd rather you not do this and that's that's your choice but to take it away from somebody that you know

116wants their kid to take it or from a kid that you know wants to take it I mean I I can't say that I can't say I personally agree with it but at the end of the day it's not it's not my decision to say well I don't think we should have it because you know because I don't care for it but that's not my job to make that decision for everybody else it is our job that's board members make decisions I I understand what you're saying but not that I'm arguing whether you make your decision to take that opportunity away from somebody else I mean if you have the the option to say yes or no if I vote we're not going to do it then I just took that option away from everybody

117and said we're not going to do it so at the end of the day if I say yeah we should you know you can opt out of it if you choose to then that's still your decision right so if the parents see it the parents might not right good chance they're not going to see this until it's too late when their kid comes home well I think we we'll notify them through yeah we'll do an instant alert and stuff like that so know we would make sure that the parents know and say hey if you want us with the the PPR letter so I can get you a copy of that but yeah I think we would do our due diligence to make sure that parents are aware to say please feel free to come

118in and so yeah a parent can come in and opt out where the student doesn't even have an opportunity or the student can opt out that day so it would be either or on how they could do that but no I think we would do our I think we'd have to probably put this out four weeks in advance to make sure that parents are clearly understand that here's what's going to be happening and if they want to come in and observe the survey they can definitely do that I think that's the key to to make sure that the parents have ample time to you know review it and make sure that you know they can feel one way or one way or the other about it the fact is there there are a lot of

119dollars tied to it I mean it's hard to know how many are attributed directly to that survey whether we' get them or not and how many of them are going directly to West Central Area Schools but that's a big number even if if it's only us small percentage of but it's still a big number yeah you know Darren I for me it also provides information for administrators when we think about the cing our needs our social emotional issues so there is some data there that is it just dollars but it's hard do we help our students grow to be successful adult if it has something to do with education the parts that have to do with education I don't have any problem the parts that don't have anything to do with education that is none

120of our business that was that's the part I have a problem with and it's a very very small portion of it but it's enough for me to say no that I'm not okay with you know just saying well well it's only one question so that makes it okay or if it's 10 questions it makes it okay if it's 15 and it's my personal you that's fine I guess my one question for administrators wise is how much of some of the questions that Darren has a problem with how much of that those types of questions give us the most trouble in the school I me deal with any of that I would say none I mean I so I mean the the what what we have bullying we have all these other things do some of

121those questions tied to to bullying that happens in our schools or not I mean would you say there's some of that would you say there's none of that would say we would deal with more we deal with more with that than maybe some of the Avenues you're referencing there we don't we don't deal with a lot of those pieces it would be interesting to see though with you know that question for example can we look at that data and see are the students that identify as let's say transgender are they experiencing higher bulling rates or are we doing a good job you know so I get your point but then also like can we but if they if they choose to answer that question and say yes I identify as a transgender individual um and

122again I haven't looked at the reports but it would be interesting to see um if kids pick yes to that or no to that where do we align as West Central area in how how we how are students perceiving their school day and how they are feeling in this building I mean I guess to me I think that's probably where they're going with that question again I didn't create it so I can't say that that's you know the route that they're going or that we would get that data from it just that's my perspective as what we would do with that data and I think I think that we could probably especially you know we could probably do a better job with the data I think in the past this is kind of one of

123those things that has been administered right is posted on MD's website and no one ever really looks at again um and I do think that you know there's probably things that we could look at doing to to make this survey more meaningful for our students here that maybe hasn't been done in the past I guess one thing you could look back at the dates what what were the dates that it was administered 2013 state page right but I'm just saying 2013 16 19 my guess is if I had to if I was just going off the cuff here we've had an administrative change at least once in just about every one of those I mean so it's not like the last two consistency in here prior they were not so this year the last time

124that this test was given I back those same questions were in there prior to that they so we had very similar rate of of participation in both of those years yeah there's only one I think you look County or something they went to zero but I don't know what year that so in 2022 obviously Pop Con didn't take it 2019 yeah that those questions weren't in there 2022 I add one tiny comment I totally understand that the question be uncomfortable for especially us I don't think that question is that uncomfortable for kids I think they run across stuff like that all the time unless you're sitting and watching what they're doing every moment online they come across gender identity constantly I really don't know that they are going to be disgusted by being asked that

125I think they're going to see it as a question and answer it right and I'm not I just don't think they're appropriate I'm not it don't bother me it doesn't bother me to read it other than the fact I don't think it's appropriate and I don't think it has anything to do with our education or any of the funding that's going to come because of it we that's my that's my personal feel right and we get we get surveys and stuff like that for like the ACT where they're asking parents education and parents income and all those pieces because they're trying to build a collective of data that's all they're trying to do and I I agree that don't have to answer those um and it's not something that we as a school should know

126what kids answer but I think as a collective of data if they feel it's important maybe it helps us discover something we didn't know about youth in our area there's a lot of questions you can ask to get data but that make them appropriate to ask in certain venues I'm not here to argue all night just have at or whatever you want want to do I don't was a good discussion I would like to make a few comments and I kind of agree with Darren I don't I don't think the questions are appropriate to ask and I for one don't see why Horizon Public Health has plenty of opportunity to send these questions to the households send it to mailor why is the school district even having this conversation it's easier for Horizon to administer

127the tests for sure and probably a bigger chance they'll actually get mailed back versus sending it to the houses Society in our world is driving the questions there's no doubt in my mind that why from 2019 to the following year they asked the questions based on society and what we see on TV and online we all know those questions are in there I don't like the questions in there um the students can skip the questions the students cannot take the test um based on those two things that they canot take the test they can skip the question I would vote to approve the test being here any other comments know I'm probably a little bit against it I would I I just don't I'm kind of a little bit with Darren Verizon public health and

128that would be a good question to ask Horizon Public Health too like why don't they initiate this on their own comes from the state so I should clarify yeah so this is a Minnesota student survey so all across the state so all all the counties get information and so it's not a horizon Public Health it's it's the Horizon Public Health Service area so they service these counties and so they get the information as well and they can use that information so this is just going off of what they gather from their five count region or whatever that I think it's five counties y that sounds right sure make a motion that we participate at the Minnesota student survey all right is there a second is there any additional discussion I would just add I don't

129disagree Darren I I don't necessarily like all the questions but I I don't think it's I don't think it's going to hurt um families have apple opportunity to not take it if that's what they choose to do as long as we get the advertisement so yeah we'll make sure I guess to me it's a four-week plan that we're going to get it out right away while the survey is available so people can inspect them and then I think we' each week put something out there as well now I'm not sure we'll if we do something on Facebook I we probably won't put comments to get things here you know maybe just informational purposes but then I say think week three we put it out twice to say now some people are going to say well

130now you're trying to alarm people I just want to inform people you know and then yep and the fourth week we just say hey letting you know one more time and like I said as we say students can opt out parents can come in and say my student's not going to that room to take that test and that's also very very much an opportunity I'm pretty sure they have a letter that we are required to set home as well yep the PPR yep so and that's the one that has uh I fill this out and my child does not they can opt out that way they can call I mean if they call the school and say I don't want John to go down and take that test John's not going to take that test

131all right any other discussion Motion in a second all in favor say I I oppose same sign no motion carries and we will move on to new business um we'll have the first reading of the following policies with statutary and recommended changes from msba policy 504 student dress and appearance policy 505 distribution of non-school sponsored material on school premises by students and employees policy 507 uh corporal punishment and prone restraint policy 508 extended school year for certain students with individual education progr programs that's is just the first reading anything you'd like to highlight on those Mr Brown there was nothing um that was real significant one of those policies so these are just really review the one policy is all the way back from I think 2002 uh so yeah there's really nothing and a

132lot of those we've already two of those other policies we updated when they had some small changes and I think the last policy that did have some updates again was just um grammatical and changes to Legal references that Terry Morrow likes to add in there so nothing that has anything of substance I another question okay looking at the student dress I noticed that since the last time I in the board the half policy is different in here is that different from last year where the low hats and hoodies and long they not over the ears not still NOS wasn't it in wasn't it in here that it is do it say [Music] we say at the discre see can have a different plan you know you can have a plan for a B for elementary

133buildings you can have a plan for here but the way that's written way I understand it it says it's allowable buies can't be over the ears um hats there's no real definition but I'm assuming can't wear a peacock hat but how you think the elementary is going to go if they can all wear hats and and have any discretion that they want so Mr wood we probably should look at that and I would before I vote for this deal I just I would like to hear from our administrator what their plan is that they've talked to their staff to see how they think that would affect it because we're going to pass for to be in here so you're going to have some say it could cause an issue if if you folks don't have

134a set plan that we're aware of on how you're going to handle it at what grades and and those types of things we should look at that now the interesting part is I think this was taken care of back not while I was here but prior to so there was no changes but yeah Mr wood we definitely look need to look at number five on so part two letter c number five is one that talks about headwear now Fridays do we allow any headwear for special events yeah if you pay a dollar days so let's let's so I've highlighted that Darren good catch so I've highlighted that we'll make sure because you that policy reads that is allowable so no we will make that change any other comments on those policies again that's just the

135first reading and we will uh approve the 2425 certified staff seniority list we got that is enclosed there so yep and so just to give you some clarification there why it kind of took a little while we now have the preschool teachers Incorporated the into the our contract actually includes the preschool teachers and so I know that the EA voted to have the preschool teachers Incorporated it used to be separate where we we had our uh teachers all of our K12 teachers on one list preschool was separate which meant that preschool could not bump into a K12 position and K12 could not bump into preschool they voted that they want to have it all together and then what we did as well um after conversation a little bit with Darren is we did go through

136and identified um those teachers we kind of looked at date of hire here it shows first day of work but we did identify date of hire uh to get that taken care of so we've got the date of hire and so there was a couple changes that happened that way and so now it really should be as we look at that list now some are still the exact same date they were hired on August 18th 2022 and then I guess we would leave that to District discretion because there's nothing in the contract um although I think it does say District discretion so I think we could look at anything from um performance to um I think possible education prior experience we would leave that open to the district District then to make those decisions there

137but right now it's time of hire so which makes it some people May challenge that to say so if I got hired in May because the first job was posted then but then you opened another p position at the end of August because you realize your kindergarten class is going to be big enough why is it we both put our first day of work in on August 25th but that's what we have at as now is if you were hired in May for the following school year you're going to be listed higher than the other person I'm just thinking an era where we might have decline in enrollment is that going to be a negotiation Lang we we do need to go through that yep you can really just get it straight Gary Lee did

138tell me that our language is a little outdated yep yep now I think when it comes to District discretion I don't know how I mean it just may say a review of these things from teacher performance which could include attendance to all those different pieces all y contracts have lots of right yep no all lean on Ms msba look at that but when I did call Gary Lee to ask him about some things he did say goes your your language is a little Antiquated but I think has been an issue but now right exactly yep yep to get it up to date so no OPP than this but from our standpoint we got aor POS correct y yep and they had a part in that too so right yeah they took the vote to make

139that change they've had opportunity to nice cation yep I mean I like your idea about Clarity so they know exactly where they're at and I think like we said before we had even consider cost saving or just right sizing I think people looked at it and just said yeah that's fine and now as we've had to look at that a little bit more closely people have been looking at it with a closer eye any other comments I look for a motion to approve the 2425 certified sen staff seniority list and a second second all in favor say I I motion carries Maya um just to backtrack to your question Darren about the Hat policy then the handbook is much more specific so what we probably want to look at is or continue doing where we

140take that the board policy and then our handbook specifies so you can see kind of in our handbook it lists as long as the way I read it thens were going to be allowed they're going to be allowed at every correct level it's much much more specific we just don't want to have contradictory language because technically right now the district policy would supersede so we'll want to just make sure that we get that to be yeah there might be there is a little bit of a a discrepancy between what board policy says and what our handbook says so perfect okay um discussion items for tonight uh we did already do the preliminary budget Mr R I may interject do you want to talk that vehicle or was that yep we will do that y that's

141a good point yep okay and so um with that preliminary fiscal 26 budget we kind of mentioned this string the finance committee um Jake kez went out and got a couple bids on well and Claire and Josh I think we took a look at the and Ryan or I don't think you were there that morning when we looked at the at the transport bands but uh Jake got prices from two I think one was for wheel drive which is available immediately that was from the first person that we talked to the seats there don't fold up there no they're both both both would fold up okay um United was the other gentleman who had the um was a former director I think of Transportation his is well I'll just be quiet I'll let you explain

142it thanks so North Central um was I was communicating with the gentleman by the name of Raleigh both Vans are the same type of Van they're a Ford transport or Transit whatever they're both three 3.5 ler um Raleigh's van is a rear wheeel drive um from our first conversation he has that van on hold for us um has not moved on it has kept it for us seats fold down um it is an 800 pound lift in the back Randy through United correct yep his van is an all-wheel drive van with a little upgrade in the flooring and it's an all-wheel drive van there's a $20,000 difference between the two Vans now there may be some other pieces with Randy at United he did talk some latch system um but that would be the main

143two differences between the two bands and the $85,000 one did pass 89 did pass the do both of them have passed so it's not like we're getting something so they both wheelchairs enter the vehicle through the back and then you can fold the back seats up if you're not using the wheelchair the back seats fold down there's a swing door on the right side or the passenger side of the vehicle where you can enter and you don't have to move a seat to get to the other seats so this would be identified only for special ed because we'd be using our medical assistance funds to take care of that which has built up over the last year because we did not spend those so it's kind of in a reserve account already so we could

144use it to pay for that equipment I know that Jake has mentioned that our special ed staff are eager to have their vehicle that they could take kids to to transition sites and things like that and other activities I did ask Todd Travis I said well Todd I thought back in the day as long as it was a certain percentage of special ed and the rest could be General Ed and he said Paul that's not the way I read the law but he said I'm not going to interpret the law I said however you want I said I'm not going to get in trouble with the law so we would make this just specific to special education and I think we'd have quite a bit of usage on all about it she's very excited about

145this possibility right now we do share some of those those places with with our current SUV and our minibus um this would kind of be a nice vehicle to bridge those two and it would be Theirs to take the field trip instead of us calling Palmer it would be Theirs to take to transition Services I mean I think that list could go on and on where they could or where and how they could utilize this vehicle so I I did tell her great the Cort can just stay in your office and you don't have to ask me if there's a vehicle available because you guys have one so um you know how many Hall it's called a six 6 plus two or two 6 plus two I think yeah 6 plus two so you can

146chairs yeah or you can have two depending with with two wheelchairs if you have one you could still fold down another seat so it's really flexible as far as seating but it's made of you could go wheelchair wheelchair then put two in the front or one wheelchair and then you could put down a row of seats plus two more in the front yeah yeah all you know I I I don't know I did I did ask Ry is the ru will drive an issue and he goes well it is it is heavy enough it does have an 800 pound lift the all-wheel drive does have a th000 pound lift he says well you could put sandbags in the back if you really want to be safe like well I guess we all we've all done

147that I mean we've all had rear wheeel drive vehicles where we've done that so if we wait till we get an all wheel drive with the design you want or no the the design would still be the same okay um it would still be the same setup um I I just don't know how quick we could get one yeah um we could get the same design right it could be I mean they they may have to look at factory he said now Ford can now design these before Ford couldn't so that's really kind of hitting their Market as as their availability tends to shrink he said if if you were to wait now I or or start a school year and say you want one to go they they're gone by September we're lucky we

148have some inventory right now but they move move quick what's our I mean what's our average distance we're going to travel we do a lot of trips to Elbow a lot of the transition is to Elbow we do some to Hoffman but I I I know mall would would like to grow that where they can go to other communities and go to other places if we go beyond that we often times contract with Palmer Bus Service Alexandria Fergus is probably not going to be a lot and probably in days where weather is I think your question many trips are off I don't think we get on on the gravel and whip donuts with it little concerned about the two whe you know the rear wheel drive when the majority of I'm not sure who's going

149to be driving it but what kind of vehicles do they drive now are they driving rear viiew vehicle wheel drive or they driving front wheeel drive and I did talk to about that and I said well if you look at our current SUV it is rear wheeel drive you know as much as there is a four-wheel drive option you know now that vehicle is obviously a little different setup than this but yeah no it that's a fair question to ask don't know I mean I I guess I you know I get the the idea of the all-wheel drive I mean I I understand that I just wonder if if we're going to drive from here to Elbow Lake on a pretty well-maintained Highway how many days are we really going to have to worry about

150the the status of our Wheels right will we will we go and will we go if it's a terrible day I mean we could probably reschedule or whatever I guess if I knew you were picking up at six o'clock in the morning like the bus was on a gravel road somewhere in the middle of nowhere might I might look at it differently but if we're able to schedule these things that you know maybe it's not necessarily as much especially we can get it right away versus wait not knowing how long we unknown yeah and I'm not concerned about getting stuck and and two whe drives the rear drives probably okay could I'm worried about the way they hand could it be used in the future for potential pickup maybe maybe Ian we we do have

151a wheelchair accessible student or students coming because right now I mean the situation isn't the best we don't have a wheelchair van with Palmer so we're trans transferring that's the other tricky part too so it's can we find out how long it takes to get an all-wheel drive I I I could definitely make that call and we you know we take action at the March 19th meeting plan I think it'd be best for us to if it's something you guys as a board feel to move on I I would recommend to move faster on it than push it down the road no Ian I I think by the 19th meeting right if you if you could let us know you just what that option is if we're looking I mean if we're a year out

152maybe they don't want to wait that long or but maybe you know or maybe we get the rear wheel drive because it's available and we just have it on a rotation we and it's an upgrade in a couple years that we know we want to order the two wheel or the all-wheel drive one for the next I don't know I think it's worth looking at I get you that information Mr brma for the next one okay y so I think our plan would be to take so you can get back to and and I did tell both vendors that hopefully this is an action item in mid-march at our second board meeting so perfect what color is it white we're moving everything to White sorry we got then we really aren't going to find them

153in the snowstorm when they go on the ditch then we need all-wheel drive all right when it goes in the ditch we want to have the separator we painted black or red all right and then the other thing Mr fing we did talk a little bit about the um because budget was your uh our not yours the activities part huddle piece there a little bit with the um looking possibly at corporate sponsors or advertising and things like that so I don't know I kind of explained it I don't know if I did much Justice if you want to explain it and then they had some feedback this meeting so I I can keep talking I have seen Mr wood kind of show the highlighter but so our our current huddle subscription does expire this year

154and and that is our current live stream platform that is um has you could attest from a coaching set that's our coaching video library and several tools that that accompany that um we are looking at an Avenue in huddle where we could um hopefully incorporate some of our corporate sponsorship into some advertising through that platform um they they do have an option where you can put ads in at the front end of your live stream and or during your live stream of your event um this would be on our end how we would like that to look and what we would like that to look like is as far as a cost for our um a corporate SP our corporate sponsorship so we're we're going to look down the road of of hopefully some meeting

155and invite corporate sponsors to come in show them what this could look like and hopefully as a means to not only enhance our corporate dollars and our our corporate program but maybe help offset some of the costs that do on company huddle because that is not cheap um and it it won't be cheap so hopefully this is a way we can help W with some budget with that as well um it it does give us the Avenue for huddle TV which is um if you've watch any of the girls basketball games it's that huddle platform is right on minasa website clicks takes you right in we don't have to manually put events on there they're on there once you put the schedule in so there there's a lot of nice uh nice upgrades not only

156for the public but as well with our coaches as well so we're GNA explore this here coming up and if you stream puddle fan already there's already ads and there's already like silent times for ads on there so it might as well be local businesses that are getting the air time anyway so so we're going to check this out and hopefully we can at least get to a net net neutral with this package compared to what we're currently spell currently current cost is what 8500 and the upgrade is 13 well could be 13 could be 14 depending on some other features that we're looking at for 15 as well so and that number can go higher if we want it to go well that's I think that was part of the conf conversation Jake that

157we had during that was you know maybe it's a well again why am I speaking for you guys no I'm gonna let you no we just talked before too is maybe that's a something that some of those corporate dollars go to you know that they're going to get the advertisement now that's it's a good fit for those dollars to you know it's going to benefit it's a direct return for them on their investment right so if they uh are a corporate sponsor some of them dollars are going to pay for that and they're going to get their advertisement there as well so those people that can't be in the gym and look at all the banners they get to see them on the live stream I know I'm I'm asked several times can we go

158back and watch video on huddle and and I think one thing we have to keep in mind that even though we're we're using huddle has our live stream um it's not meant as a hey we're going to just keep keeping our videos out there for the public it's meant for the live stream platform and it's meant for our coaches so we have our setting set to live stream only that's a default setting if we change it we open that up to everybody to see that and keep our videos out public in our library we we have taken the position that we want our videos here purely with our coaches and not out for the public to go back and look and and that now you know those of you that do have kids involved you

159can see those videos at any time that players are into the H but I it's very hard for me to say yep we're going to leave that open and you can go call up a game from you know this fall or this winter so so that's a position we're we're probably not changing with that huddle setting we're going to keep that to live stream and keep those resources for our coaches so can the coaches go back and can you yep it's in the coach can team play right it's broken into Clips not the general public y y it stays with our coaches which really is I mean we're not trying to keep grandparents it's not that it's just all of a sudden we get down to this further line down of competition right and they

160can they don't have to do any work on that they just pull it up and and do it that way now there's still opportunity for to get that this position is is in the majority with people with huddle I mean you don't see too many people that have huddle keep their stuff out there it's it's more meant this way I think that's why more of money been too huddle because I think if you had YouTube it did stay out the right and people could Kevin would you take him down Craig Craig was a little no I get it so a couple things that are percolating that probably should have been in the report earlier I apologize for bringing them up now so well but we had said that we'd bring it up here so yep

161so any questions or does that kind of make sense of what uh they're looking at perfect okay um staff adjustments and so this is as um Todd had mentioned earlier that budget does include um at some adjustments and really I would consider those right sizing for our organization based on our student enrollment so it's not what we would call Cuts I would say I mean it is cuts to positions but it really is to right size where we need to be and we did talk to all three teacher staffs and let them know that tonight's meeting would not identify any names nor will the meeting on the 19th so nothing official here just wanted to bring it to your attention um and then the meeting on the 19th would be where you would take action

162on that names and would start to be identified at that April meeting the business meeting so that third Wednesday in April uh we have talked to staff or I have talked to staff a little bit to say hey if you're considering a leave or if you are considering um you know if there's some type of early separation agreement that you would like the board to consider we would much prefer to do that rather than to actually have to tell somebody that a position is not available would make life easier for the morale of our staff I think easier for administration as we move forward um so what we're looking at currently right now is two Elementary positions we would be looking to eliminate one elementary teacher at North and one elementary teacher at South just

163based on the numbers that align the magic numbers that Natalie prash always told me was Dr Cheney's numbers and so it's 18 to 20 um from kindergarten first grade and 24 2 through fourth grade but um I think it also is based on some of the needs in the classroom so if we have some high needs that never could change but I also know that somebody talked to me after one of our meetings and just said well I know in a neighboring District the number is 26 but you get an education assistant in your classroom to help in kindergarten so I think those would be pieces that we would look at uh but still planning to consider you know still deliver the exact same service you know one of those areas that we still will

164probably continue to monitor this month is or being made aware that possibly some students could be transitioning to some other type of educational setting which could change those numbers as well but again not looking to just we need to make sure that our staffing reflects where our student population is and things like that however I'm fully cognizant of the fact that our public passed operating levies to keep small class sizes right I mean one of the comments that the business manager said when I kind of laid out our our class size as he goes goes that's a luxury and I said yep that's exactly what our community kind of expects small class Siz I mean you go to other districts especially larger districts are going to tell you 26 to 28 kids is going to

165be the norm but I realize that's not WCA and many smaller communities look at it that way so um and then the other position that we're looking at is in special education so we've had a teacher as you recall last week we did have some or couple months ago somebody did resign their position so we're kind of taking a wait and see a just to see where our numbers are um so it's not a for sure again looking at student numbers but right now our plan is that we would not um have that position either um uh just monitoring numbers as we go through the spring here and things like that but officially we would have even though that person's leaving you would still have to take action no name would be identified ever it

166would just be that we have a reduction in one 1.0 FTE um the other area that we're looking at is uh music uh because we start to drop our numbers in the elementaries that also means that our music um would could potentially be less and I've got to double check some other components with that as well if other specialty areas would have that same piece there that we need to look at but uh so we'll look at music as well to see that becomes a little more challenging as we have two elementaries on the farther sides of the district right and so how do you so what I've got to sit down now is look at mileage if we're going to have the person and travel is there you know an overload that's there and

167so what is the true savings by the time we add that all up is there any savings so we'd have to look at that to to see there um some other areas that we've kind of identified would be um if we have staff do some different roles on our certified staff it may change a little bit in our support staff role there as well that has not fully been determined yet but we'll bring that recommendation to the board um at the the May 19th meeting but if we have staff certified staff doing different things at might open up some pieces there as well um Megan's already addressed the preschool piece there were our numbers so we'd potentially look at a um three reduction there but that's still in flux because she also says that we

168have 40 kids up at at North and we're not going to cap I guess that's the one thing that I'm hoping the board can understand that we would never cap based on probably anything we don't want to look at capping our numbers right so U but that's another position that's being considered and again we've had the conversations kind of asking our staff for solutions that way if they have that looking to reduce our uh Supply budgets by $8,600 so naturally it comes with the positions that we're reducing there's some savings there but we're going to reduce our classroom Elementary classroom Supply budgets from 500 to 300 found out when I first came here said we're going to go 600 found out that that wasn't common practice here nor is it common practice in other districts

169it was just in a district that I was in before that we did that and so we're going to draft from $500 to $300 which I think still is more than I think at one point it was $95 here and I've heard some other people say hey we're at $200 $100 so we think the $300 is appropriate there and then we're also Mr um wood has also looked at the secondary school budgets just to make some adjustments there on that um I got to think of my other pieces that we had talked about photo copies and that really just comes from our staff I've got staff that say we've got a tremendous amount of waste of paper people print things but then they never go retrieve them and they just end up in the recycling

170so looking to reduce that by $1,000 any unapproved overtime we tend to have a little bit of overtime in some of our positions and I again I think it's just because we don't manage it all that close I don't want to micro manage but if you get here at 2:10 and your shift doesn't tell it start till 2:30 I have no problem if you get here at 2:10 punch in and and start working but if you get here at 210 punch in and don't start working and then it's overtime that becomes a little bit different of an issue so we'll just monitor that more closely and then the last one that we kind of looked at it's a small dollar amount but I know that our El Chad has mentioned to me you know with

171our elementary tournaments that we have here we really don't recapture any of the cost so we pay for our custodians uh to be here and so do we just say hey whatever group's putting that on I realize they're doing it as a fundraiser but do we say hey here's what that custodial cost is because we pay a differential then for folks on a Saturday or a Sunday it's 50 cents on a Saturday a dollar on a Sunday and then if it's a fulltime we've got to pay time and a half so do we say hey here's that cost probably generates only $1,000 maybe a little bit more I guess I haven't looked into it too closely but um the other thing that I've seen before in other schools is hey if you and wrestling parents

172pick this up very well um if you don't want to pay the fee all we ask is here's the broom here's the vacuum here's the mop and you don't have to have it better than what I mean we want it to be nice so when we have school Monday we're ready to go but if you just do that like I said I've had experience before with wrestling parent I mean it's like Immaculate like can you come back next weekend because this is awesome if we could do this again but looking at that so those are kind of the suggestions that get us over that $250,000 um you know Cost Containment piece that we need to look at because that's what um Todd did have in included in that budget and again not looking to to

173hge anybody through that but just knowing that we've got a right size our organization as we see our where our enrollment is and and we're not the only District in the state looking at doing that unfortunately there's several districts that are that are falling into that piece with the early retirement um this is just an idea that I threw out there I will tell you there what I first mention it people go only five years you only have to work five years in the district so I still question that myself um I know that I talked what I did first did is vetted it out with um mde Jen Carl send out an mde because I in my spare time I like to go on and check what other schools are doing with their board

174uh meetings and stuff like that I noticed that new prag had looked at an option of early retirement and what they talked about though they'd be concerned about their implicit rate subsidy and I don't want to get too deep into the woods but it's one of the things that we use that our insurance is more the state says your insurance we have to have a an Actuarial study um through the Actuarial study it says because you allow retirees still to on your insurance plan the district has a higher rate of you know for insurance so they allow us to Levy about $35,000 well new preg said hey this might hamper or you know new preg said because we have the sunset Clause we might not be able to Levy that money so what I didn't

175want to do is come up with a plan of early retirement then say well we what we thought we saved we just spent 35,000 because now we can't Levy the dollar amount um but if you looked at that plan it's um you have to be 55 years of age or older and I think I still need to run this by msba so it's still I think a work in action but um 55 are older and then for every year of service it would be $1,500 that you could have so if you've been here you know um think the number that I used was seven years it's $10,500 we would have to pay it out into a tax advantaged vehicle that would be allowable so an HSA a 403b over three years we could we can't

176pay everybody out the first year because we're trying to help our budget right so you would do it over the three years the $1,500 would be capped 20 years and so that's going to be a $30,000 buyout for somebody who's been here 20 years age 55 and it would have to be paid out over those three years so $10,000 a year like I said I have not had time to run it by msba just to make sure the first shock usually for folks is when I say five years but when I explained it to the one to Jan Carlson I said But realize that these people who are probably here at five years have probably taught in another District now that doesn't help us they didn't just get into teaching at age 50 to to

177be done at 55 that doesn't you know cash flow very well for student loans and things like that so just trying to find some ideas like I told our teachers hey if you got an idea to say hey would the district consider this you know if there's some opportunity for people to look at an early separation and it helps us eliminate the number of people that we have to go through the the non-renewal process we are going to have some non-renewals just to make you aware even if we get this done perfect anybody that we hired under ofp um out ofield permission so we have the Elementary uh support student support but I think actually that is a social worker I think they did give us an ofp for social worker Elementary music and English

178will have to non-renew those positions because they're not licensed in that position so we will have to go through the non-renewal so I didn't want you to think well he told me we weren't going to have to go through this and now he just put us through that but that's based on statute used to have to do that perior to but the law has changed on that which is fortunate for us because we did have somebody worked pretty hard in their business license and then to say after you put all that work into it say guess what no you don't have we got to put you on non-renewal and do it they've changed that piece there on that one because they are working towards that license now in those cases how many times can we

179re like if nobody else applies how many times is there a limit on how we can re rehire they've kind of I think it's five times but you can always so let me use fax as an example you can't find anybody in fax and they're like then you're then you just put in your notes we'll either not have fox or we have to have this person for year seven and oftentimes they'll approve that now the other thing too I think I put in my notes before I forget was the unintended consequences now we have somebody who says hey I like the idea I'm going to retire gonna take this and then we go oh no we can't replace that position they took that now we've got a hard to fill area in a in a

180science a math uh band director band anything like that now you can't refill that position so now we're did we help ourselves no and then the other challenge that could be is that the only candidate we get is I mean back in the day you would do this because you could usually hire somebody at a ba step one BA step two but if we have to hire somebody at ba step 17 because that's the only person we get her that's our most qualified there went the savings so I just want to be you know transparent on that as well so those are all the pieces that kind of you need to mle over just a little bit to see I have not had anybody reach out about an early separation to say hey please get

181this wrapped up so we can do this but I just wanted to get that conversation going I know that the Morehead schools that's what they've done to try to see if they can eliminate some of their having to tell folks that they don't have a position the following year okay any questions on that any concerns about it I mean like I said I'll double check with msba might even run it by legal councel just to say hey I mean because State Statute actually let you do an early or request by February 1 anybody can do that by February 1 It also says then you can negotiate individually with the district if you want to we pass the February 1 deadline um I know uh where you have to be careful because now they say you

182can individually negotiate so some districts took that as well I can individually negotiate that with an elementary teacher because I know I'll have another elementary teacher but special ed that's not going to be available to them it's not going to be available to math well then you got to be careful of discrimination right why did they I'm the same age I'm applying you're not letting me do it so I just want to make sure that we don't have anything that I think is a positive thing and then I have to come back and say well this just cost a $75,000 so the savings we projected we don't have that so I just want to make make sure that we've checked all the boxes but wanted to see if the board had any interest in that

183like I said I did push it out to teachers just to to make them aware of it that there was and but I told him I said this hasn't even been passed by the school board so or you know even uh showed to you so but I just wanted to kind of get them thinking as well Darren I think we'd have maybe eight to 10 and how many of them are in the positions that would be hard to fill there's a few that are in the hard to fill positions yeah I made eye contact with one of them at one point just to say this is the this is the unintended consequence that we would potentially have so it's not a one for one you know somebody takes it that's already to fill and you

184still might have to cut somebody need that yeah that's not the position you're looking for yeah it doesn't right it convolutes the process yeah well that's you know there's not a lot of yeah Elementary there's not a lot of elementary teachers currently that are been here a long time you know so you if you need an elementary teacher or you're going to cut an elementary teacher you're not necessarily getting one that's going to retire to save that spot right y but you could get somebody else in a hard hire position takes it and you still have to cut right that's what I mean yeah right yeah that's the yep and you might not find some you know so now you're short twice or it might cost you more money to get some refill right exactly

185those are all the yeah I mean every time you have new people you get a lot lot of money learning you don't know what you got what you're getting rid of right and and they're stable right they're they're not looking so you can hire that new person you could be one year and they're out again so all right do you want me to continue to proceed with that or do we just say that we're not interested in any early separation or I guess I I mean at this point I I think everything's on the table right I mean if there's interest you know then you always have to look at that that'd be my opinion so um I would want to see you know a few examples of okay we we we accept a early

186separation what are this what are the actual savings going to be if we hire said other person what are we what is the savings I I have no idea without without that I wouldn't be able to vote for it would it be possible to say that the teachers we haven't made a decision yet but we need a deadline so at least you get sure is there something there but then we have then we're not boxed in yet to chance to look at it I don't know I mean at this point like you say there there's got to be a there's a number right there's I mean if it if it's 55 we know there's only this many teachers that are over 55 right I mean at some point there's there's going to be a criteria

187that eliminates a good portion of our CER staff right right you know so and my guess is the five years doesn't well the five years eliminates probably just about as many as the age limit does right I mean but to be honest there isn't you know it's probably half of our staff that's not been here five years maybe I'm just guessing but I'll some this exists I don't even know if this exists but it might if somebody's on leave somebody is on leave and they worked here five years and 55 plus would they qualify for it if they're on lever know and they're not getting any deal or something yep they would qualify we don't have anybody currently so only one is already on something right right yet they've already got a an agreement I'll

188run some numbers and get that out to you so you can see so yeah maybe we just say we'd like to have something by April 1st that we're still working through the details hopefully have something ready by the 19th this would be maybe a a plan or if they've got a plan of an idea because really April 1 gives us time before that April 19th meeting where we start to where we have to identify folks so we would commit that we would do it for sure it's we want to know if you're interested you by the state you guys numb well I think I'll try to run those here over the next couple days and get that out but by the 19th maybe we could have a more solidified plan then we just tell them

189by April 1st that we need to have hopefully they can start talking about it and if they've got something that they would like to see different they should probably give us an idea so we can look at it so it's not all in April 1 well I'd like this plan to be here but yeah I can run some of those numbers and and have that ready to go and then I'll make sure that msba has an opportunity and and legal council can say yep you don't have to worry about any discrimination pieces or things like that that can sometimes trip that up a little bit it's one of those low frequency high risk areas that I I just I'm not comfortable with all right any other discussion there um then one thing we've been working

190on over the last few months here um is superintendent goals and you got should have those in your packet um so these are just uh you know this is starting stting point so what we'd like to do is you know the board to weigh in on these goals to say yep we like these no I'd like to see this tweaked you know um we'd work forward to figure out some tangible measurable you know criteria to evaluate some of these things off of um you know some of them are are difficult right you know the did I communicate effectively right I don't know without having some sort of a measurement on did you hear me did you understand what I said did you get the message did you care you know all those things factor into

191communication right um but as we move forward you know it should be pretty simple you know goal number one regular communication with Schoolboard well we're getting our weekly updates we're getting you know a lot of times an extra update in there especially with our you know different closures and you know sports teams and all all those things we're getting I would say maybe I'm different but more than probably once a week um but at least once a week and I think that that's one of those pieces right so as you look at these you know do they look like um you know things that we can work off of do they look like they're adequate do you feel like nope I want to throw all these out and I want to start over um I

192guess this is kind of a PR preliminary hey these are some things we can we think we can measure and and then we'd move forward and and again you we talked about you know like a like a quarterly touch let's touch base here now um you know at this point we're in in March already we're probably looking at June we're probably touch base again in September um we typically do a superintendent valuation in December as we keep continuing the cycle here um you know just having better r touch points on where our goals are at do we need to tweak them you know are these still effective 6 months from now maybe maybe we're on to a completely different you know item at that point and we say h we got to look at you

193know budgeting is taken care of we want to move to whatever it is you know so I guess as we I'd open it up for some discussion on that um just kind of a we're trying to get better back on track with with what we're doing here as far as as superintendent goals and evaluation and and continuing to make everybody better here so I think it's a great start and I appreciate it yeah I think many of these things just artifacts will provide that documentation for us to have a conversation about and you know at a touch Point say hey that was great can you add this or whatever absolutely I think almost everything you can TI a artifact other discussion points any other concerns any other modifications not really I think everything on here

194looks good the only I guess the only question I'd have would be how do we gauge the communication with staff like how do how do how do we measure where that's at without hearing from them I mean you can I'm not saying there's a problem I don't know if there is no a good point that's why I want to know how I how do I measure that because you can say that I'm communicating with them fine you know you don't want to calling us for every issue right right yeah okay you want you want to be the boss way it should be all later yeah well I mean you want Chain of Command right so but in order for us to evaluate you in a proper manner we need to hear from them somehow or

195we need to find a way to measure it well but it could maybe include artifacts again so possibly like I just went out and met with the staff so maybe it's is that those agendas for those meetings I jokingly I think somebody said oh this is really official I get I get that part like you did something that you met with them you me with quarter of the year you go into that building so often but is it working like is the content appro do they feel that the content is appropriate do they feel like they're you're communicating in the right way how do we measure that to measure you and and that's a very tough question for right now and I don't need to get into discussion or anything like that's the only thing

196that I I picked out in here that okay how do I measure that that I can do a good job job I wonder if that your performance review I wonder if that measurement would be made and conf is that somewhere where think we could have that I think I think our principles probably are going to give some feedback on that I mean you know if we look at that you know you said chain of command chain of communication I think is something term that's a new term right the same thing I I think it's chain of command too right but I I still feel like there's a lot of times where if a teacher comes to a board member they've jumped two levels not one level they've jumped two levels right and so our our

197our administrators our our principles I think they got to be more actively involved in this part right so I I hope that we get to the point where our teachers go to our admin you know our principles before they go to the superintendent right then we got to hear from them with them right but they come to these meetings right and and Y somehow we have to feel confident if we don't feel confident that you're giving us an accurate of how you feel but how they feel right right and I guess at that point I I hope no news is good news right at this at this point typically if the squeaky wheel gets greas right so if I'm mad that you're not communicating with me we hear about that right away you know very

198seldom do we get the the Kudos that we put out at the beginning of the meeting we don't get that very often we we talked about that right we don't we don't highlight the good things that happen very often and that's that's just the nature of people right but I think that's part of what we're going to have to get into this process of is you know Mr BR can come and say well I had six meetings with staff I sent out this many update emails to staff he's going to come with those numbers those artifacts that tell us this is how many items I did I think administrators are going to you know confirm those things and and obviously if if there's an issue if if the communication's not getting there I think we're

199in here about those things I I don't know it's a good idea or not but confer is a conduit for communication right absolutely teachers is there some way of using that group absolutely I don't even know I don't think it's some but some way of capturing you know that can be an agenda item we can ask them I mean hey this is one of the items we want to know you know maybe that's a way to and then those that are on that committee has you're have to come back and not we're all we're all going to review you know individually I felt pretty comfortable at our Mee and confer meetings that we made it pretty clear or comfortable that you know we can talk about whatever I think it's been going good just it's

200got a good climate maybe that's that's what we're shooting for so maybe this evaluation would try something there and see how it works at that captures the communication piece that people are after great do it again the next year not y we tweak it again right come down to the old thing constructive criticism hopefully we can all constructively criticize one another think I'm not sure that there's going to be criticism I just want to know how to measure it if there is what I'm getting yeah well I think that's the I guess as far as I'm concerning the time I've been on the board I I think we jump we jump too too deep in right I me know hey Paul I'd like to hear I'd like to get a little bit more of my

201you know my update you know I think that's simple but I didn't get what I want so I'm mad you know I think that's happened in the past and I hope we can get away from that or the teacher say well he never talks to me but I never went and asked him or I never went to Mr wood and said hey Mr wood we're not getting any information you know I just I just sat there and I was mad in my classroom because nobody came and talked to me but I never told anybody that that made me mad you know those are the kind of things I hope that we like like Nathan said you know I think we've been pretty open in those meetings and and we' told them I think we've been

202pretty upfront with them hey we need you guys to help us you know especially with everybody knows everybody probably right now if I said who's the most negative person you know a name comes to mind you know you you got probably a face right ready in your eyeballs you know well we need we need help from the staff to how can we help those people you know what if if I'm the most negative person everybody knows here what can you guys do to help me not be negative anymore you know what can I do differently to make it so that you're not the most negative person I know Mrs not dots I know she can take that so that's why I would never say that about Mr wood because so right yeah so but but

203you know what I mean those are the things that we have to figure out right so I think that's a conversation that's continuing and I and I hope that we can touch our touch points are more of a hey we want to tweak this a little bit not a you did a crappy job I think we need to replace you you know I think there's some Merit in trying to capture that communication piece if Nathan if you as that committee feels that that would be a con maybe try that this year get tweaked in feel like it's one of them y for sure principles is the other Mr Bron maybe you can speak to this I think some of like the culture and climate pieces that we're looking at trying to maybe dive into a

204little bit deeper in the next year or two May address some of this along the way too just with feedback from staff and feedback from people and taking that constructively and applying it so some of this may fix itself too in in the you know near future is it give and kind of gives the metrics I feel like you're Darren you're saying you want metrics right how do we really know if we don't have numbers and can't talk if we can't talk to them I exactly I can't I can't just go off of what no somebody says and you guys you folks are in the you're in the toughest position of them all all three of you g you're in the toughest position of M you got two people to make happy right either come

205to you for point you got have you got have the G tell right so yeah you guys got the hardest one of them all hey great you had to throw that out there right before negotiations that's Jake hasn't taken notes all night but he wrote that one we are at the 17 minute Mark in the meeting so I can get yeah anyway um other comments I think I I think you're absolutely right we have to figure out how do we measure all these and maybe we get to the end and we say ah that I don't feel good about that measure you know that that measurement is not what I was looking for you know then we have to adjust those goals and we have to you know set new ones and hopefully what we

206have for goals today hopefully they're Irrelevant in a year from now right we already solved all these things and we're on to new goals and you know we just keep moving forward but um you know this is kind of our starting point and and uh I'd like to get this just to be a quarterly thing that we touch on so we you know it's just part of the agenda you know I go back to my military you know we have you're going to take a PT test this month you're going to go to the rifle range this month you're going to you know you you already know when the year starts what months you're going to do certain things in and this I don't think should be any different I think we should know that

207we're going to really focus on on these things this month and you know next month it'll be budgeting items and the month after that it's going to be you know staff fixing you know all that stuff is going to happen and and we should be able to preset a lot of those things you know tooth and Taxation happens every December we already know that's on the agenda for next year so that's a simple thing to you know talk about whatever it is so um I guess that's what I see going forward so then what we would do um unless there's any major changes we would just I I think next meeting we would adopt these goals okay and then we would just move forward with these and and again we'll touch Point probably June September

208December we'll get those touch points in there and you know a couple of them will probably be pretty informal maybe it's just a part of your update you know hey here's where we're at with these goals this is the you know things that I've done to support goals one two and you know maybe it's not every time you're touching on every single one of them but then come December we're probably we're going to take that survey that was 20 whatever pages long and we're going to tailor it down to these to these goals you know where do you feel like you're at is it a one is it a four is it a you know did we not touch it this time you know some of these we might not you know they might get

209overshadowed by something else we didn't we didn't get a chance to do this okay well then we want to work on that one next time maybe that moves up to goal number one for you know communication versus goal number four whatever that is you know I don't know that they're actually waited as far as number one's more prioritized than number four it's just they were just underneath that category does that make sense to everybody you know so but maybe next go around hey legislative updates is a huge deal cuz they're you know maybe they're not in session next year or whatever ever that is you know we can we can tweak those things or maybe it's not relevant type deal so clear as mod all right so that'll be an agenda item for the 19th

210and then we just have the high school PSO I know you guys have been waiting we we put you last this is what waiting for all night there is printed copy if you want paper copy and it's on the agenda as well but so kind of a little background on this and sometimes I forget this because from dealing with it so much this is dealing with PSO or echs which echs is our online college classes that students can take in the building Theo typically involves more of students going on campus to different colleges um or doing it fully online through a college um and kind of the goal behind this policy is it is not a really anything different than we've been doing for years now however we haven't really ever put it into any

211type of policy so when we've had situations we haven't necessarily had a fallback of this is how we're going to approach this situation um and what so Morgan Anna and I have put quite a bit of time into researching what other schools have for their policies and then the yellow is kind of more specific to WCA the unhighlighted stuff is is very common in different policies for different schools around the state um and then we tailored some of the other stuff towards WCA one thing that we learned in like this whole process is that um you know PSO is very much a parent student decision and we are simply the conduit