WCA School Board Meeting 2/19/25

001all right you are live good morning it's 7:01 in the secondary school media center and we'll call the meeting to order and we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the repblic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all roll call girl here Porter here sandstead here sour here I am here Josh here and Claire here all right we don't have any public comment this morning so we'll move to modify our agenda um you'll notice uh there's a couple of modification 6.3 we will table that um and we will also add um consider approve the early start of the graduation ceremony 6.7 and consider an approv closure for the state wrestling tournament 6.8 are there

002any other additions or modifications to the agenda this goes away then or we'll just do it there I thought we could disc we'll take I want to put an action item I we can discuss it there y That's fine okay so you're not sharing You're just showing the people oh no I want them to see it yeah thanks Kevin good cuse so maybe we should if we're going to consider it approve could just discussion remove that so um there's a discussion item the 2025 graduation ceremony we will move that obviously to 6.7 for Action so uh we will not need 6 or 7.1 as we will discuss it at that time does that make sense to everyone yeah are there any other additions or Corrections look for a motion to approve the agenda as modified

003and a second second all in favor this is a roll call vote uh gross yes Porter yes sandstead yes sour yes ol ol and Vincent went pretty fast yes okay perfect that was you Josh that made the motion yeah thank you all right um committee reports we'll move right into Hazel's report yep good morning Hazel so we do have your presentation up on the screen thanks for joining us this morning so we will thank you I appreciate it it's very cold here and so assume it's even colder Where You Are what do you think very cold is Hazel we got to see what kind of a person you are to start with here well it says minus 10 all right we'll call that okay then um how much time have you allotted for this because

004I sometimes get a little too enthusiastic how much time do you guys wantan to how much time does a normal presentation take Hazel 30 minutes yes I would think that would be appropriate okay well thank you so much for entrusting me with this study and this opportunity to present it so let's move to the next slide uh one of the things that we still have to deal with is the lingering effects of covid so I analyzed your enrollment and obviously your kindergarten capture rate fell during the covid year but has bounced back to pre-pandemic levels uh students shifted to other education options and in your case it was homeschooled the numbers increased they've declined somewhat but remain higher than pre pandemic so you're still feeling some effects of of of the covid EP epidemic next

005slide please uh and just to show you this I I uh T took the numbers from the base year 20145 the year before uh the pandemic and then the most recent year and you could see there in the home school it started at 29 was 34 students uh before the pandemic and is now 55 okay next slide uh one thing I want to impress upon you is that the environment in which we making projections is very different than it would have been uh 10 years ago one of course is this we are in a period of very low fertility which by which I mean uh women are not having very many children we're below replacement replacement is 2.11 uh for woman until the end of childbearing we're at 1.75 2022 and falling we're slightly above

006the national average what this means is we have a uh the number of births are de decreasing uh and of course that means that the number of potential kindergarten students five and six years in the future is also decreasing fertility varies by ethnicity and also by rural urban uh that the largest declines are in large Urban centers uh a topic we're tired of talking about population is aging really driven by the Aging of the baby boom generation it's uh calling for a different mix of housing more apartments condos town homes and those units yield very few children per unit and also a smaller percentage of households will have children uh meaning that you have less density of kids over over the geography next slide uh less Mobility we're we're moving less than we did uh

007since the second world war about 20% of uh all Americans change their address every year now we're below 10% so we're far more uh staying put and this also affects the demand for housing immigration from abroad has slowed I don't know that that affects your District but it's very hard to predict and it's been very important for the state of Minnesota uh enrollment overall primarily driven in the Twin Cities metro area but also some locations in Greater Minnesota uh we're back to a pattern of having more people leave the state then come to the state and we are losing young adults which then also affects our birth numbers and we are in for a period of very slow population growth uh that has many implications and then the competition for students is increasing in Minnesota

008we have more education choices actually uh funded publicly than almost anywhere else in the country and uh each of these choices seems to be uh getting more and more students every year next slide please so what are the key finding ings for your District in the past 10 years well basically the district school age population was flat it increased by one student so in essence it may have varied somewhat in that 10 years up and down but but you basically are flat nonetheless your resident K12 enrollment decreased by 35 students which was a 5% decrease giving you a market share of 73.6% you had net loss of 69 students to other public options but your total enrollment decreased by only 16 students or 2.2% and of course that difference was because you had more non-residents

009attending and non-residents make up 11.3% of your enrollment as of 2024 25 Hazel I just have have one question for clarification when you say resident K12 that means students in our own District I mean they can they residents of the district okay so they're so we're just down in our own students within our own District boundaries regardless if they come to WCA or go to another school choice overall we're just down 35 students you're down yeah you're down 35 although within the district boundaries the number of school AED kids remained flat okay so you lost a little share which is very typical thank you that's what's happening in Minnesota okay uh now one of the most interesting things is that Grant County bur and I'm going to use Grant County as the proxy for the

010district uh they fluctuated but they're they were slightly higher in 2008 than uh in higher than they were in 2008 so they were higher in 2021 than in 2008 uh the these uh Public Schools experienced natural decrease in I'll explain that a little more but but uh that means that kindergarten was smaller than the previous years's grade 12 this puts downward pressure on enrollment because in essence you take in fewer kids every year than you graduate out and that occurred eight times in the past 10 years but you've had net in migration six of the past 10 years but not in the past year so we'll take a look at those numbers a little later um here looking at educ choice so you can look at how you compare State why you will see that

011a higher percentage of your residents uh residents attend home schools than Statewide you had no students in in traditional brick and mortar non-public schools you'll can you can see that open enrollment plays a big part in 20232 24 10.3% of your students were open enrolled and yet of your resident school age population 17.5% uh uh chose open enrollment to another Public School in another district and then you see your capture rate is just about a percentage Point higher than the Statewide average next here we uh you know you can look at the numbers you can see that your non-resident students increased from 60 to 79 um and you can see that decline in in the resident enrollment from 658 to 623 uh these components of change this is something demographers like uh uh in the

012left columns you have the year-over-year change and the percentage and then in the two right columns you have the natural increase decrease which means uh as I explained the difference between the size of the incoming kindergarten class and the previous year's grade 12 or the graduating class and then net migration uh measures if people moved across the boundaries of the school district or changes in uh Choice like the increase in number of students uh non-resident students attending so you can see that that uh in the early part of the past 10 years there wasn't very much natural decrease but starting with the pandemic years you can see the numbers increasing and so that cost you 64 students nothing you can do about it but just helps explain why you had that minus 16 and then

013on the net migration I point out a couple things the huge net in 51 between 2016 and 2017 uh uh could find no explanation for that uh then the minus 23 of the pandemic uh 2019 to 2020 very understandable and then this past year A minus 20 also unexplained um so net migration added 48 students so between the two you get the the change in enrollment this and this is an important concept because uh natural decrease is something that you're going to be facing uh continue face okay next slide here's here's the enrollment and I just point out a couple of things I'll look across that top row of kindergarten and you'll see since the pandemic uh with the exception of this past year these numbers hovered around 40 uh prior to that they were

014a little bit higher uh now when we look at the diagonal uh F kindergarten 2014 14 we had 58 students in grade 159 grade 26 6361 until we get to uh grade 10 at 54 when we lost four students over those 10 years from that cohort uh and so that's how we calculate the net migration if you look down the column of 2023 24 you see that your um secondary grades are a little larger on average than your uh Elementary grades and this two SP points that that you're likely to have enrollment decline especially if kindergarten uh doesn't hold up at at 50 which I don't think it will I think it will be less than that okay next slide please uh we're going to project it by a method that is traditionally used in

015projecting uh population it's I say both simple and complex it's great strength is that it ages uh uh people or in the case of school enrollment it ages each grade by moving it forward to the next higher grade in the following years following year and that but it requires making kindergarten projections and making net migration or survival rate projections grade by grade for every year okay next slide there are some assumptions underlying this I think the decline in Resident burst in Minnesota will have an effect um rant County share burst not likely to increase it's of course a very tiny share uh but it's not likely to increase I don't think your share of Resident bur of the proxy of Grant County is going to increase in fact it's a near high of the past

01610 years so I don't think that share will increase and that and it's assumed that competition remains at its current percentages that that uh it doesn't increase or or decrease um and that would to change that we'd have to adjust the survival rates next slide okay with all this decline in Resident ver and since I did this report I wrangled some data out of the Minnesota uh Department of Health between 2008 and 21 we had 11% decline in Minnesota bur uh when we come to 23 we uh uh it has dropped even more a pretty precipitous drop in burst in 2023 uh 2008 to 21 uh we actually had a 99.4% increase in Grant that percentage looks large the number isn't so large we'll look at that uh but clearly bursts have held up relatively

017well in our proxy County um you can see what's what's happening uh and I think M was likely to find that follow the national pattern here of declining birth because of a decline in fertility rates and the Aging of the population okay here resident bur let me explain that's a very particular term it means that on the birth certificate the mother listed an address that could be coded to uh Minnesota to Grant County and even to specific municipalities so you can look at the numbers here for Minnesota but I'd really call your attention to Grant County uh what it looks like it the verse really jumped around wildly here the last few years but basically it's been flat maybe even we could call it a slight uptick uh that 76 verse in 2019 is very

018high otherwise you see it's running oh 60 to 65 to 70 uh births per year seems to be what's happening in the last few years um because these numbers are small small numbers vary more they fluctuate more um and that makes this all a little trickier because they are small but basically uh you know burst held pretty pretty steady for you okay next slide well here I'm just showing you the projections of zero year olds from Minnesota I really want to call your attention to how flat those numbers are from 2025 to 2030 uh and that's um what's driving projections for for slower growth uh and there'll be very few places that uh will be exceptions to this flat number of of births next slide well I said this so we can move on okay

019here I look at um a kindergarten pool bur are reported on a calendar year to be five years old by September 1st enter kindergarten in Minnesota so I have to adjust that and I call that a kindergarten pool uh oneir two3 basically so uh from from the birth I've created this pool and then I look at uh the this is based on Grant County and then the percentage your kindergarten was of that pool and this is kind of noteworthy here it starts out very high then starts to uh decline a bit then we expect the low number of 2021 the pandemic drops to 55.6% after having been about 75% the recovery after the pandemic we have have two years that don't seem to recover that dramatically and then the past two years comes out Gang

020Busters with 78% and 76% which are higher than anything other than the 20145 year so that creates a little bit of a puzzle for uh someone making projections so I tried to deal with that by looking assuming that maybe the past two years are way to the future or looking at some prepandemic maybe is another way of looking at it so let's look at the next slide so I made these assumptions I assumed that the average of the five years before the pandemic which average is 71.4% might be a reasonable um capture rate and then I took the average of the past two years which was 77.3% so I created two assumptions for kindergarten then longer term I have to go to the projections made by the Minnesota state de de Dem demographic Center um

021and you see Grand county is only about 1% of Minnesota bur so I I've used of that okay the next slide so the grb county pool based on the projections made by the state demographic Center in bold you see based on actual bursts and then the other co uh lighter is on the projections and you'll see how flat it is and in reality we know it's not going to be 65 6565 because in the past it jumped around but there's no way for me to project where that uh where the fluctuations might be up or down so I'm looking here and projecting kindergarten and I actually projected more kindergarten students in these projections that occurred in the past 10 years so let's look at the kindergarten projections here at that low one at 71.4 51

022students uh this past year and the low projection shows you going in at 49 and dropping to 46 per year totaling 470 students over 10 years compared to 454 for the past 10 years then the high projection based on the average of these past two years uh shows the projections of of being 50 students or more it comes to 510 students I'll tell you right now I I am doubtful that you will exceed uh the past 10 years by the uh projected number in the high assumption but we wanted to see what that would look like so when we look at net migration or the survival rates has been mostly positive on the P until the past year you had that large year with 51 students there's no consistant net inflow of students at any

023grade level except between kindergarten and grade one and you have a loss of students after grade 10 which is typical in Minnesota so let's look at these numbers here you see pay for that's where you pick up students coming in and you tend to lose students or not gain much in in your secondary grades okay the next slide and here you see it grade by grade and what I was talking about the pay one you seen that top row the first two years of the 10 years are very small but then we get a plus 12 a plus six a plus 11 A plus 12 a plus 21 plus five plus 15 while this last year was minus one this says to me that that some I don't think all that all that many kids

024are moving into the district I think they've been in a nursery school or some kind of school with a kindergarten uh and they then entered uh uh public schools at grade one because they weren't there at kindergarten they they suddenly appear you will but nowhere else do we have any consist inflow of of students you'll see the uh there's no real pattern to any of this it's it's uh uh just the the nature of small num of people moving about whatever that produces these changes okay now you saw the ra raw numbers these are survival rates uh converted into a percentage anything over 1. 00 is inflow anything under that is outflow you'll notice that in the projections I have used the same survival rate for K to one I looked at it and I

025didn't think there was any reasonable way other than to assume you'd get about a 16 and a half perc bump uh into uh grade one every year so you can see that you have an inflow in some a small outflow in others uh and then if we look at the next uh slide we can see I use the same low kindergarten assumption so I can uh see what the effect of migration is and you can see that the two years prior to the Past versus the past three years produces more students but not at K4 only at 512 and then the next slide here so there's 27 student difference in enrollment between the two net migration assumptions no difference at K4 26 at 512 and the difference between 26 and 27 is rounding in in

026the model so it's about three students per grade so what does it look like in 10 years when I apply the two uh kindergarten assumptions to migration assumptions well I accept for the two high kindergarten assumptions enrollment the other two will show a decrease 702 students 324 654 to 726 most of the difference is the result of the kindergarten assumptions and if we could look at the next slide uh the district made some made a projection for 20293 and it fell between the low 676 and the 698 actually right right between them I don't think I don't think you will be down as low as the lowest projection I think the low kindergarten High migration probably is the um best projection the high K low migration is not that different really but I don't think

027you'll reach the high high I I just don't think that's in the cards I think there's too much downward pressure and lower fertility uh competition the like uh so I think overall that you will see some decline but not dramatic decline certainly very manageable okay in the next slide interestingly as you can see the decline is all in your secondary grades not in your C okay now what could make these projections too high well the kinderg too high the county pool too large or capture rate de decreases um or Inc decreases uh fewer students enroll non-residents enroll the same way again too low is that the it's based on the kindergarten the pool too small um so or more net IM migration due to more nonresidents okay then people always ask about housing and the

028relationship between housing and enrollment is a complex one unit type affects school age child per unit yield single family detached units have the highest student yield per unit newer single family units yield more students than older single family units when single family units sell newer units tend to have an increase in student older units likely to decrease a market value this always surprises people but moderately the higher price units have a higher yield than the lowest uh value units and of course anything built for seniors have have no students I have results from four State Minnesota Wisconsin Illinois and Colorado single family RX K2 yield berries by school district and by a attendance area within school districts town home yield is consistent across all districts across all states 0.22 so it's really tells us that

029the type of of of family that moves into a town home is very consistent no matter where Apartments yield very that's again very consistent across all school districts across all state 0.11 to 0.15 so you need newart uh apartment units to get 11 to 15 school age kids Condominiums yield almost no schoolage children this is an ownership type and just tells us that that there are virtually no kids involved and the next slide um we've looked at your uh what happened in the last five years in housing units in the district and what's projected or or what people are willing to make a a projection on and I would say that there's not enough housing unit growth to significantly influence enrollment so I want to say thank you and I'd be happy to answer any

030questions uh I have just one question on the the the open and roll in in your projections if we're talking about 10 years out if we have a family that has seven kids in 10 years that family's probably you know how how do you calculate the fact that my if I'm open en rolling here my kids are only here for so long and when my kids leave I don't I don't bring any new kids you know do you does your numbers account for that family we sort of assume that that somewhere somebody else is going to open in Real uh you know that that in that Universe of folks there are there's somebody else who's going to Sure open enroll just that we make the same assumptions on the Open Enrollment out that as as

031residents uh uh who choose another school district in your case ASP or Alexandria or Fergus WS or Boris or wherever uh that they will eventually be replaced by another family that will make that choice um in District that where we have actually plotted uh where open androll students live uh the phenomena tends to be somewhat at the at the U borders of the district usually not at the core of the district although increasingly competing school districts are sending their buses right into town to pick people so um but you know as we look at it we see that open enrollment in has increased over time as has open enrollment out sure any other questions for hazel there a couple one one question I have this Darren um you mentioned early in the presentation about the

032young people leaving Minnesota is there any answer for that uh I don't know if there's any answer to it we know that we start to lose them at College age that we uh export more college students than we import and once they uh leave uh and enter uh a more Regional or national job market they probably don't return it's an issue I know that's been discussed at State levels interestingly there is not a lot that public policy can do about population uh we have had ample uh experienced not only in the United States but worldwide the governments cannot influence fertility except to lower it which the Chinese managed to do masterfully and now can't get it up again um we people flowing to the state or leaving has a lot to do with with uh

033the nature of jobs Minnesota exports older people and then they seem to come back after the age of 85 um that inflow again probably for health care because Minnesota does have very good health care um so it's it's um it's for young people I think it's the type of jobs we have and the compensation of those jobs Hazel as you were working on the report or the study was there anything that stuck out to you to say the district probably I know you said that we're just showing stable um you know decline in enrollment but is there something that you saw that maybe is a concern we need to address that sticks out from other districts uh well I can't say that that anything particularly sticks out I comment on a couple of things that

034uh where those kindergarten kids are who don't show up but show up in grade one if there's attending somewhere else in the district uh that might be an opportunity um when I look at your open enrollment out it's it's uh spread over a number of districts uh a lot of districts that goes to one or two other districts you there spread out uh uh all over all over the place so to speak um and that's a complex phenomena people make these decisions for usually very personal reasons um they are attached to another Community it may be a function some people like small schools some people like larger schools um you know so that's uh I guess what really sticks out is how how stable um some of these Trends have been for um uh basically

035a rural District I guess I I would have anticipated more declines than you actually had so I I would say you've held your own very very well thank you and you know in this competitive environment you you constantly need to remind people about what you do well great any other questions for hazel no well thank you very much Hazel for the report and we appreciate that information if you have any other questions just feel free to contact me okay okay thank you very much we appreciate it okay byebye all right that brings us to buildings and grounds report is there anything from the committee I do have the minutes um in there from our three meetings but I think there was some conversation about maybe some Community Support or looking at Partnerships and stuff like

036that so if you just want to kind of that we've had two meetings and we'll have one more upcoming next Monday and we'll hold that one down in Kensington we looked at prioritizing some things of what we have looked at currently not not of the entire District we haven't looked at everything yet but some of the stuff that we've looked at we're looking at prioritizing and seeing some things that are specific District expenses or guess that we felt were specific to the district and and then some things that we thought there might be some public support for we to help us uh raise some money so that we can get those projects accomplished quicker than if we have there are things we have to do no matter what but if we can get them done

037quicker it' be a lot better and I did just receive an email from the fire marshal following up on where we're where our status is and of course that's the stage curtain so I just received that email yesterday so that he had not forgotten about that and then the only other thing I'd add to that is that um one of the one of the areas of funding that we were looking at was looking to ask possibly some fire departments in the area for some funds and if we do that um we kind of got to get going at really finalizing what we're going to ask for how much we're going to ask for and get those letters written so that we don't miss those deadlines and those come quick April I think right is there

038we it done by March but okay all right anything else for the buildings and grounds report then we'll move into the superintendent report okay just a few things to report there of course it's nice to see that the weather hopefully is going to moderate a little bit here that's been challenge over the last few days but it does look like we're supposed to see some improvement there and hopefully that indeed happens legislative update and so I'm not sure um maybe we I'll double check just to make sure all of your email addresses if you'd like uh to be included with M know that they give out a weekly update so if you're not receiving that you'd be able to to stay up to date to what's going on at the legislature they just completed week

039five of course it took the house a little while to get started en rolling uh but they are doing that and some things that were proposed and House Education Finance were that compensatory hold harmless I think I had mentioned that at our last um meeting just the fact that if the current law goes into effect we lose about $60,000 so we're hoping that the whole harmless maybe does take shape because that's of course those uh dollars that are based on our free and reduced and they're kind of changing some of the rules and how they do that so hopefully that'll hold of course the unemployment insurance reimbursement that was Set uh by the legislature the last two years they had a finite dollar amount and that dollar amount is starting to run out and so

040they're trying to find ways that they can take care of that that now there's a couple options that I've heard about one is that you could maybe put that through special education funding uh so you could get reimbursement there but special education funding also has a finite dollar amount too at the state level before they start to to um PR rate and things like that as you'll see a percentage rate special education transportation funding right now that's more or less covered uh almost at 100% they're looking to go to 95% and then down to 90% which of course we have a significant expense when it comes to our special education Transportation so that would have a hit to our budget there just a little bit uh I think part of the reason why they're looking

041at that maybe a little bit is because if it's fully funded it's not too difficult then to just add that special transportation for folks but I think they believe that well if there's the district has some responsibility maybe they'll think twice before they add that piece uh for particular situations um House Education policy we talked about this a little bit the last time too uh remember there are some districts that have some decent fund balances in Food Service ours is not currently there it is trending in a positive direction um and then there was some funding that some folks had a lot in long-term facilities maintenance I just wish we could use theirs and help us with our facility a little bit but uh so they're looking to possibly offer some flexibility where you could

042transfer dollars there to help cover some of your general fund expenses it's not really going to help WCA but at least offer some flexibility and then I know another piece that's been really talked about last uh the last legislative session there was a a lot of um legislative mandates that were put in place and so they're maybe looking to see if they can delay some of those mandates or allow districts to opt out not sure how that'll settle out but that's one of the the bills that's out there right now as well um and then I just heard on the radio this morning coming in and this is in Minnesota as well there's really a push now remember they told districts we had to re review and kind of have a clear policy for cell

043phones and a lot of districts made that change where you couldn't have them in classrooms and and things like that well now um there's a a bill out there that's looking to say we're going to ban them completely from K8 um and then 912 would be prohibited from in the classrooms of course with some caveats that if there's a special education need or a health requirement that those pieces would could be looked at uh some feedback is that's a local decision leave it to this local school boards to make that decision let's not make it a Statewide piece because most districts have already done that um on that level but I there's I don't know what state it was but another state was looking to Bay cell phones and it really comes down to one

044what are kids doing while they're in the classroom are they completely focused where they should be or is the cell phone a distraction the second piece that continues to come up a lot is the mental health concerns with cell phones and of course we can manage that in school it's going to be when it's outside of school when it can still I mean that doesn't change anything there but that's one of the pieces there so it's a cell phones and the smart watches congratulations to our wrestling team on a great well win last Friday they're section 6A Champions so they'll be going down to the state tournament uh next Thursday as a team uh I think the board my understanding from when I first uh arrived here was the fact that if it's a team

045competition at the state level that we do close school for that so that's why I've got that coming up later for the board to to take action on that if you so choose um and like I said it would just be this team competition on Thursday the 27th community task force we've not had a meeting since our last school board meeting but that meeting is scheduled here for the 26th we will show some clips probably from Hazel's uh presentation I did meet with someone yesterday who said we just need a little more clarity when it looks at our enrollment pieces uh this particular indiv individual just said you know we keep hearing the cining enrollment but just give us some some pictures that we can look at to see or some graph so we can

046see where that is because I visited with her yesterday and she goes you know this makes more sense we just need more time to digest that to see that okay here's why some of these options are being considered so we'll have that coming up remember four options were uh kind of uh proposed to The Architects or Wu and so they'll be coming back with some aost associated with those four plans and then hopefully from that meeting or one subsequent meeting we can have the task force will have a recommendation for the school board to consider there buildings and grounds Darren kind have already touched on that but we do have we've had two meetings and we'll have a third meeting coming up next Monday uh down in the library at uh in South Elementary in

047Kensington so that'll be coming up there I think it would be good too to have another finance committee meeting prior to our next board meeting uh because that'll kind of set some pieces in motion there so if we could get that meeting scheduled then I can get that posted uh for our finance committee and then you'll just see I've kind of got those dates listed out there of what we have coming up here over the next couple weeks all right any questions for Mr Brown on that report a question about the cell phone I read about that as well who who lobbies on behalf of the Schoolboard for kind of just talking to our legislators about how maybe our area feels maybe not the metro area about that rule or um cuz I have some

048issues I I mean I don't I'm stuck in the middle between okay having cell phones in class like in the younger ages versus the older ages because we know that as soon as our high school students leave they're going to use them in college so to me it's it's really about the standards that we have here with them using them and the accountability to how they use them sure you know like I know personally my daughter she sits at home with her doing her homework and she's got her cell phone doing you know she's looking at both screens trying basically trying to have two computer screens at one time sure you know to do her work and that's that's acceptable use right looking at social media and sending Snapchats and those kind of things in

049in classes is not a recommended use or to me acceptable use so um I guess I like the local control side so how do we as a board if the board thinks that local control in this area is the right thing to do who do we communicate that with and who doesn't so msba would be the one representing the board members and I believe it's we're in 10 region 10 and so I know that there's a representative for region 10 so I'll see reach out to that I'll reach out to the Schoolboard Association if they say yep here's so you need to follow that through but I also know that msba has a legislative day at the capital I think that's March 10th and board members would be invited to attend I don't think we've

050had board members go in the past but if that's something that you'd like to do maybe when a couple so let me ask the board then is that's something that in this particular issue and there may be other issues but for for this particular issue the cell phone one is that's something that we as a board want to talk about and see where we think we should go with the admin administrators or do we leave it to our administrators to decide where we think the school should go because if that's coming up and we want to do some Communications or we want to meet with our legislators as you know you and I as that committee yep or you know that seems to me being it's brought up at the state right now that I

051guess in my opinion it's something that we should talk about and come up with a plan of how how we feel as a group or that's because that could have a major impact on our on our students good bad what however we want to look at it right or is it not a high enough priority to me it is because I think if if cell phones are used in the proper manner and we teach our kids how to use them in the proper manner before they leave for college they'll be in a better place because they're going to use those that technology there's no doubt about it well they use it right when they leave our doors I mean it's not so just taking it away and then then we have no control over teaching

052them how to use it in a proper man right yeah sometimes prohibition isn't always the best thing I'm going to look up well it'll go on the screen why don't I I'll reach out to msba like I said it's region 10 um so I'll get information there to see how we could possibly funnel it uh through that individual but then I'll also get more information on that legislative day at the capital like I said I'm pretty sure it's March 10th in case there's any interest of of going down um that day I think they join that with one other group that'll be down there I me know I know the counties go down there they'll send Representatives down and so if that's something that you would like to do I think they do a nice

053job of getting things set up where you can meet with your local legislators and things like that so if that's something that you'd like me to to sort out to get figured out I can get information to everybody on that piece that way sounds good all right any other questions comments I'd like to make a comment I know I think it's I think it'd be a good idea to discuss it and then you know if we did have discussion on it I'd want to know how our faculty the administrator skill on the cell phone since they're the folks that are dealing with the distractions of cell phone usage in the classroom might be good but there's no way to cut out the distraction and whatever else that comes with it has there been much feedback

054since the last you know we put the last change in place I think there's been positive pieces is what I have heard I think they had to review again mid year to say hey here's our policy I think sometimes it becomes enforcement right uh to making sure that it's enforced throughout the entire building so I think that was our biggest biggest issue is just making sure that each staff member was enforcing it the way it was in the policy and so I think they were just clarifying that a little bit but I think they've seen some positive areas with that less distraction and things like that so but yeah well so maybe I'll get that information together we can check with staff just to see because they um I mean I know one point they

055said they had a lot of surveys to do but as you'll see with their school calendar and things like that we've gotten some pretty good response there so and a lot of those have been staff members so I think they'll be happy to give their feedback all right then that moves us into our approv the payment of claims Mr Porter do you have any you'd like to address on that our February um payment of claims is quite high as you can see um not really too alarming um check register or it is alarming but due to payments that were needed um so we'll talk about the wire transfers first here but uh we paid our maintenance Bond payment to $262,800 204 um and we had three pay periods for processing due to our last board

056meetings scheduling so that that added in our wire payments of check register of pretty typical stuff we had our Andy Tower Hills um transportation cost um which was not not out of the ordinary we had um Lakes Country service cop training for our Paras for 1300 $ um I can't remember Paul what B four was $3,200 payment that's something with I believe our seniors and things like that some of their pieces yeah that was us yearbooks that's correct yearbook payment uh School Management Services for payroll and uh business manager assistance that type of thing was $ 41,5 so I would look for a discussion or approve payment of claims of $94,700 second all right roll call vote gross yes Porter yes sandstead yes sour yes um yes Al yes Vincent Yes all right so you

057made the motion right and Josh made the second okay well or did Darren make the motion I made a motion you made the motion Darren did okay Josh second all right then we'll move to our consent agenda you'll see the approval of the meeting minutes um for those uh meetings the regular January 22nd meeting uh January 28th buildings and grounds committee meeting the February 3rd finance committee meeting the February 5th committee meeting the February 10th buildings and grounds committee meeting we also have the Personnel items um designations of uh custodian I'm not going tol CHL y all right um Vanessa mcnamer head softball coach resignation and the deia sanasac per professional resignation and we also have the two leave requests um one for Holly natwick and one for Vanessa mcamera um in addition to that

058we will approve the final reading of the following policies um policy 425 staff development and mentoring policy 501 School weapons policy policy 502 search of student lockers desk personal possessions and student person and policy 503 student attendance and policy 522 Title 9 sex non-discrimination policy are there any questions or comments on any of the consent agenda items and I'll look for a motion to approve the consent agenda Mo and a second second all in favor we'll do a roll call vote gross yes Porter yes sandstead yes sour yes I'm a yes rri yes and Vincent Yes all right consent agenda carries that brings us into our new business um we expect accept the following um donations uh we have Community Health auxiliary $500 for helmets for ski day uh the music boosters $2,000 for the

059musical expenses and Connie eers $85 for one act um I would look for a motion for that resolution and a second roll call vote gross yes Porter yes sandstead yes sour yes Al be a yes rri yes and Vincent Yes all right donations accepted that moves us to our approve the 2020 the fiscal year 25 budget revision do you want to touch on that Mr Bron I think Todd Todd were you gonna touch on that piece there yeah y I can share my screen all right can everybody see that or maybe I'm not sharing yet okay so we have the the proposed revised budget for um maybe bottom line the general fund first we have revenues of 12,248 384 expenditures of 12, 26878 so a slight deficit overall of 19,69 um looking at our unassigned

060fund balance which we no strings attached uh fund balance um increasing by 50,7 192 to 1,566 383 that would be a 12.77% on sign fund balance and um looking at other restricted accounts operating Capital increasing slightly to 234,00 um kind of holding staff development at 50,000 and ltfm was fund balance of 17374 student support Personnel um 6,920 remaining and medical assistance at 10683 um we are planning on utilizing some of this for the purchase of a special ed vehicle and possibly some um staff benefits and so on so that's really the the highlights of the general fund we are also proposing that we would this has actually already happened uncommit some dollars to be used for the purchase of a vehicle as well so any questions on the general fund moving on then to uh

061Food Service uh proposed revenues of 59427 expenditures of 553,000 this would allow us to get back to a positive restrict fund balance we did have a large inventory balance at the end of the last year which kept our total combined fund balance positive uh at 1,879 so in order to do this we will need to hold food costs down as much as possible um and uh currently we are tracking similar to last year and last year we did end in a deficit so um we'll keep an eye on that again trying to to hold our costs down down fund four uh we know fund four is a challenge to um basically we're going backwards in several of the restricted areas overall a spending deficit of 193,194 balance uh we Levy at 105% of our bonded

062principal and interest each year so occasionally the state will take some of that excess back as our you know we do that to allow for uh not collecting 100% of our property tax revenues but we're we're near that number in our County so we do grow a fund balance so they're taking some of that back so that's nothing out of the ordinary so over all all funds revenues 13, 373,000 and expenditures of 13,608 715 so overall spending deficit of to any questions on the proposed revised budget any questions there all right then I would look for a motion to approve the revised fiscal year 25 budget and is there a second second take a roll call vote gross yes Porter good sandstead yes sour yes I'm a yes alri yes and Vincent Yes all right

063then we will move move down to uh the non-certified seniority list for 2425 are there any questions on the noncertified staff seniority list I would look for a motion to approve I got one question and so when you look at some of these seniority lists you got a couple people or whatever or you might have four you might have five whatever that hired on the same date right whatever let's just say they were all hired on say there are four people in the same class that are hired on 99 of 22 M um what's the is there is there is there a tiebreaker system set up is there specific things that would determine okay well if there's a tie in seniority and there had to been you know who actually has the most seniority and

064four people that had were hired on the same day is it the time that they sign the contract is there some other is it the discretion of the district is what is it and if if there is something specific should we hav't listed in the in the regardless of whether it's certified or noncertified I would say it probably pertains more to certified as I was kind of looking I don't know if anybody here it looks like they're all different dates so I don't think it pertains as much to non-certified but I think a couple that are like 8 22 23 sure so yep um so yeah so it may be probably getting some clarity there to see I would say if the in that case it might be discretion of the district but we probably

065just need to identify that I think it's in our in our uh certified staff comes down to if one elementary teacher was hired in May and then a second one gets hired in July of the same year but they don't start work until August how do we make that determination and I think that's what we were kind of talking about a little bit is how do we how do we clarify that because they really don't start work until the same time but there's a contract so I think might be something that I'll visit with the EA about especially just to say how do we want to look at this and it might be a negotiations matter I do I do know I've been talking to msba a little bit about our clar clarifying language as

066we've looked through a few pieces and they said ours isn't very clear they say actually our language is outdated and so they said there needs to be some they call it qualifying language for that type of piece so they've got some model language that I think I'll look at to propose but it's probably going to be something through negotiations to say okay how do we look to do this but then I agree that it would be listed right on the seniority list because currently right now if they all start the same so they come to New Teacher Workshop August 22nd of 23 we that's what how we have listed in the senority list and I think sometimes there's been some confusion that there's even been assumptions that if my name's higher up on the list

067that I'm even though we were all hired the same time so I think there needs to be some clarity so I think we can work on that maybe you don't want any Clarity but but if you do want CL that's just kind of the question is if you do want Clarity seems like something that there just needs to be some known right so people realize what's going in so it's not I think that helps everybody in if issues arise right right so and I would say over the last several years I mean last year was our first year that we had to start looking at budget containment so I think before everybody just said well it works it's fine not a problem and now we're into the point of okay this is why the seniority

068list actually is an issue um or why I need to look at it more closely so y I think it's just a matter of getting those pieces clarified there may be certain pieces that just become District discretion as well but at least if we identify that people will know yeah I mean that the likelihood though that you hired Ryan and Darren at the same time on the same day is not very right you know so I mean there has to be a I mean we only have so many people that do the hiring so right if I called you and hired you before I hired you then you should be hire on the seniority right I mean I get it that you all started work on the same day but we secured the person for

069that position sooner yep you know and then they should just be reflected on the list that way right I think we had the issue corre previous that there was a bunch of dates they were all just on the list and they weren't set up that way so if you're on the list that that's how it should be on the list too right right yep it should be yeah very clear that way no question getting that piece would be would be helpful so we will make sure that we even have that adjusted as we bring it back this next time because there's some integration of some other pieces there that were we were working on still yesterday so that's why we're tbling the certified one but the non-certified were have for your approval all right any

070other questions or comments on the non-certified seniority list I look for a motion to approve Kayla Josh it was Nathan Nathan yeah sorry this year doesn't work very good roll call vote gross yes Porter yes sad yes sour yes Alia yes rri yes and Vincent Yes all right moving on to the calendar you saw that those results came back um pretty overwhelmingly for calendar option A we also got a lot of feedback on those early release or late start days and kind of it wasn't I would say as overwhelming for the they the overwhelming piece was they want the early outs our families and staff who responded want to keep it as an early out not a late start uh and then the next piece was to look at Fridays if we could it wasn't

071necessarily before an extended break or anything like that so I started looking at that uh yesterday to see how do we do that and I think this might have been and CLA I don't want to put words into your mouth but uh but I think what I started to look at I know consistencies oftentimes valuable and if you look at that school calendar there's not a consistent Friday so you can't say it's going to be the first Friday of October through the end of the year because we have um well it could be actually I take that back so maybe it is the first Friday why did I well April 3 we don't have that would be the one that we'd have to make an adjustment so maybe it could be because yeah there's no

072school on the second but we could do the 9th of January so maybe that first Friday of each um of each month starting in October through May just moving it from Wednesday to Friday I don't know how many events I know that one of the administrators in our admin meeting yesterday he said I guess I'm a little concerned about the fact of um Fridays at the end of the week how productive is that going to be as well should be productive that we should be able to get that work done but yeah I I guess I was I was looking at yesterday I'm like well we have too many interruptions on the first Friday but October 3D no October 7th is a is already a workshop day so that was the day I don't have

073my color it's on my calendar here so the seventh is a day that's an interruption and then the third is an interruption so then we'd have to change those and I didn't know if you I mean we could let people know far enough in advance but I've also been under the the belief that once it's a consistent date everybody just realizes after we get into the motion that the first Wednesday the first Thursday whatever it is is it's going to be our are um early release so we have the 7th and the 3rd of April would have a conflict with the first Friday and then the second anything with the second the second the nth is the second Friday right January I mean we could do that yeah yep we could do that so yeah

074we could do the second so it would be the um yeah the 14th oh the 13th there's no school of February right because of conferences so how important is consistency I guess would be the only piece and then if you look at the third Friday it's mea and then the fourth Friday definitely has quite a few with Thanksgiving um Christmas break may may I make a comment you sure can um you know the cons consistency piece is one point but my other issue was how many staff are going to be out on Friday afternoons with um coaching responsibilities we we know that gets bumpy and I'm sure Jake would try and mitigate that with schedules as much as possible I guess what I would ask is if we go with a Friday early out that

075we collect you know just how many coaches can't come to staff development in the next year and then we re-evaluate is this really workable because that staff development time when you don't have all your staff it makes it much more challenging to move forward with initiatives so I would just say let's be sure we take a look at how that impacts us next year and use that for decision making for the following year or Claire do we approve this calendar and then at the next meeting we could have that information because I think I think what we need to look at is not only that but maybe the number of days that people are out for appointments too right I mean if we have because that would also to me be a natural time for

076personal leave and things like that that could have impact so can we approve this calendar because I know some people are waiting for it it's really just our early release times that we would need to clarify so maybe I could bring more detail there and we can just say and then our early releases will be because we know the early releases that was very clear like I said the the Friday was a little bit more was it 38% compared I think 25% so it wasn't as Stark as the others but then we could just make sure that it all works out that we like Claire said we have our staff here and I can bring that to the March 5th meeting to say here's what we've determined would be the best on those to make

077sure we have folks here and we don't have we have consistency in pieces like that does that work for everybody yeah as far as the consistency of you know trying to make it on the first Friday or the second Friday or whatever I just just from my standpoint I got to look at the calendar anyway okay so I don't know necessarily if if it has to be you know every first Friday or every second Friday because I'm sure I'm not alone that with everything going on I still have to look at the calendar to see half the time what day it is let alone you know what's going on that day so or that we're already to the next month I think yeah so you know I don't think that it necessarily needs to be

078the same day every month sure but that's just see there easier to put in the calendar as a remind if it's on the same Friday I would agree with Josh but of course I won't have any kids in the district next year but um and I also agree with Claire you know when you make changes like this there's nothing wrong with making changes and but anal Iz in those changes is a good thing um one thing I add about the coaches like in basketball right now we I mean four the coaches on one side are staff are staff currently there were two now three on the other side and then I'm not sure with wrestling but and then the other thing is to look at is not that just that there's an event on that

079day but when is the event right yeah cuz I would say the majority of the time the bus never leaves before 2:30 right just just guessing you know right and and several so you maybe there's three Fridays or maybe there's two two out of the three there is a event then and but it might only be one sport and then they might not be leaving till 2:30 3:30 anyway right yeah I think we can bring that back look see if it is a conflict or not a conflict then I guess the only other piece I know why we move these to Wednesdays and ofed I think was because of Junior High practice right there's no Junior High practice on Wednesday now if we have it on a Friday there is practice or a game and

080so then we would have to find because I'm assuming families aren't going to want their kids to ride the bus home and now I've got to bring them back in for practice at 3 o'clock now like you said for the staff that aren't staff they could hold practice so that might work okay for them so I think that's the other piece that we'll just so why don't we do this Jake and the administrative team will come back just to say here's all the pieces we've got the calendar set so we know that part is clean right that it's really just where we're going to set we know we're going to have eight two hour early outs um we've already kind of started planning that just a little bit um with some uh culture stuff that

081we look to work on next year a little bit through some leveling work and so we'll just come and say hey here's all the caveats that need to be considered of Junior High practice and and I don't know do we need to send out a survey now to family saying hey we're looking to move Mo it to Fridays if you have a junior high participant will this have a negative impact on you otherwise I've got to find folks here to probably supervise I just can't have Junior High kids I think we have to be careful about I think I mentioned this the last two times we' talked about it but I think we have to be careful about and and and look at what is that percentage of our entire student body that makes a

082big difference if you know and how we make it I mean when it comes to practices yeah probably going to have probably going to have to make some adjustments of how we do things and things like that but you know we do that all the time in sports regardless of if it's the bo they get to the junior high level or you know or whatever it is you know or other things other than Sports we have to make adjustments on how we get there and I I don't I don't think that'll as big of a problem as anybody thinks it'll be adjustment no doubt it be adjustment but the only piece there is those are the kids that are going to have the issue right if if I don't if I'm not in a sport

083I'm going to go home you know that's that's what I'm going to do or I'm going to go to daycare if I need daycare or whatever but the point is is that those are the kids that we need to figure out what they're going to do in in the interim so we still have to we still have to look at it I'm not saying not to I'm just saying right look at the big picture too right I know it puts them in a hard spot because they don't have transportation as their biggest piece you know that way figure that out so yeah no so I think we'll just come with all those different pieces and and a recommendation for you guys to to kind of consider like I said I think the Calendar's good for

084approval it's just where we're going to place so I think we morning practice it might be a morning practice day like they do on Wednesday sometimes true could do that yep you morning practice on Wednesdays forever but we're talking about Junior High kids that don't go you know that's that's that's the point now that's the discrepancy here is Junior High kids that can't drive into a morning practice what are we going to do with those kids my D couldn't drive in the morning practice Serv with either but they had to get a ride right for a varsity practice not a junior high practice right so okay so we'll look for an approval then for this calendar with the caveat that we will work to get our A2 early early releases yep is there a motion

085for that and a second second all right we'll do a roll call vote gross yes Porter yes sandstead yes sour yes R is a yes ol yes and Vincent Yes all right then we will move to um consider the student participate in the Minnesota student survey can you give some background on that I can yeah they do that survey every three years it's uh come I believe from the Minnesota Department of Health and so they're looking at you know potential risky behaviors and they can um when they the information or the survey is anonymous but they get that information and they may say hey we recognize that vaping is high in Grant County so we're going to put some resources towards vaping education in that um District I think there's also been a little bit

086uh I think from the last survey there was some feedback that maybe our students didn't feel like they were being heard um by the adults and things like that so I think there's been some pieces that through the county they've been working on too with some listening sessions to say hey what do we need to have for our youth in the county so there's some different uh things there the um the surveys administered in fifth grade 8th grade 9th and 11th grade and I was able to get because for a while they're getting a hold of a sample a little bit of a struggle but mde did uh did share those examples a family has the opportunity so we have to give enough notice so families have time to look review the survey to see

087if they're comfortable a student at any point could opt in or out as well so the family can say my children will not take the survey it is a an electronic survey and so as you kind of looked at those if you had time you saw where it said if yes then those other questions populate but if they would say no then those follow-up questions that were associated with that would not follow um I know there's been a little bit of a a trend some of the superintendant in our area I know one District just said we're doing our own survey and they put it online and took information that way and they we're going I think share that I think it does potentially I'm not for certain but just that there you know then

088the Department of Health doesn't have that information to say hey we'll re I don't know if we could take our personal survey to say hey we believe we have needs here's our needs can we get some dollars to to go with that um you know for that need but I do know that there's been more concern about the survey um with some of the questions and things like that that's why I wanted you to have the opportunity to look at it um like I said there's a survey just for grades five level two survey is for grade eight and then level three survey is grades nine and 11 families have the right to opt out a student on the day of the survey can say I'm not taking the survey or they can stop at

089any point so they're not it's not required it it is anonymous but um some school this I would say maybe in the last several years more districts have reviewed this a little bit more um because they've heard some concerns from families and so some board some districts or some superintendents are bringing it to their board to say hey what are we going to do and I know um in our area there's two other districts that are making that consideration this week as well their comment was I'm bringing it to the board for review and and uh in a recommendation so I can tell you right now by looking at some of these questions on here I don't support the survey with all the questions that are on here currently I don't know if you want

090me to read the questions I don't like or and we we don't have the right to yeah we can't omit so we can't call them and say hey we're comfortable taking the survey but we don't want the what one of the sections is on sexual behavior right so it has to be sexual orientation and sexual behavior and well many of them yeah what what is your gender identity a gender boy man isgender [Music] transgender what what do this I mean as far as this what is this what are they gaining other than they're going to get some like who who does this come to who who gets this information what are we going to do with it the department of Ed in the department of health and so that's in back many uh probably when

091it was administered that I recall like six years ago was hey we can identify that there's maybe a a vaping issue going on in this County so we're going to send out resources to take care of vaping education and things like that it seemed to progress farther than that now you know I don't know if it's the mental health piece sometimes it's the mental health that I think particular to Grant County would have been hey we don't our youth don't feel like they are being listen to so that's why they did the listening session so that's kind of the recent pieces that I have but I think yeah it's those Darren those questions that you brought up that's where it's becoming concerning right were you saying that we either have to do this survey we

092can't admit you did do our own survey but you didn't think that was going to be as so a neighboring necessarily is helpful because it's not the questions aren't exactly the same as everybody else's that I'm not sure if the if the if the state if we can say hey we've conducted our own survey we realize that we have an issue here if they're going to say yep okay we'll allocate you know $5,000 for you guys to address that piece and yeah you can't omit to say hey we're comfortable taking the survey but we're going to Omit these questions they'll say oh that's the family has the right to opt in or out but so do districts well I could tell you then that I don't support this survey I'll tell the board that I

093don't think these some of these questions are should be asked to an eighth grader or a fifth grader or a fifth grader I think when it gets goes from the fifth to the eth it really gets you know substantially worse um so like I could read these questions but you know any of us I don't need to I anybody that wants this can ask for right yep want to see it but that's my stance on unless we can admit question no and we can't do that yet because that was another question they can choose not to answer questions correct still got to read them well and I guess the other question the other part of it is that's the world we live in today so I mean there's those things are here it doesn't matter

094if they get it from this or they get it from YouTube or they get it from whatever social media platform those things are in the world today so you can't just say by not taking this survey we're going to save our kids from anything but the question would be is there's a there's a whole lot of good information that could come out of the the rest of the survey as well so there's a lot of good pieces that we can learn from our students from an anonymous survey that I guess just a couple questions that come to my mind I mean there's a lot of questions in here it's a long you know there's there's a long survey what what eighth grader wants to sit down and answer you know 100 questions about my feet

095you know I don't know is it are they are they like you've done it before Kevin did you administer the student survey like three years ago had I believe and do you did we get good information from that I guess I don't even remember it happen it didn't come up previous but yes it was uh primarily focused the feedback that we received was primarily focused around chemical use and abuse and I think in the youth being heard by those and so remember was it last year or two years ago when the two representatives from public health came in and I think they brought some students and said hey we' really like we like that Community Center piece that's kind of where that came from they said he we didn't we don't really feel like we're

096being heard and so that's not a place for us to go was also B part so I mean I guess when I look at the survey overall yes there's some questions I don't agree with but they they have the option to not answer those questions and there is a ton of information in there that we could gain and be useful um so I guess that would be one of my questions to the board is yep I I I don't disagree with you Darren I don't care for some of those questions I don't think that there is any place for them but at the same time that's the world that we live in and it doesn't matter where you go you're going to see those things can we gain good information from what we could get

097from this or is there another option for us I mean like you said if it's not going to be tied to dollars maybe it doesn't benefit us to do a different survey but you know what the other question then is what dollars did we gain dollars from that did our counting gain dollars I mean I know that those kids did that project you know how many dollars was that that you know again is there a way to see what what we gained from taking the survey the last time sure sure yep I could I could get that information before that March meeting and how soon like is there a timeline on when it has to be taken by or by the end of the school year okay and we have to give Families Two Weeks

098Notice to have the right to opt out so we have to give a PPR letter I think the pupil uh rights act that they get to so the families get to look at it families can come in and Survey it and at that point the parent can say yep I'm opting my three children out they're not even going to the room and yeah so they don't even go down to where the computer isn't set they don't set at a blank computer they just don't go down um or you know the student when they get there they can say I'm not answering the questions or they can skip questions or they and I'm not sure Kevin do you recall when they took that test the last time was there quite a few students that opted out

099during that time there were not okay that mean we had some in each group but there were not the vast majority took it and I'm not sure if all those questions were there some of those questions have maybe been added and things like that then way to see the old I mean to see what that one looked like I mean I'm sure I it's all public data so I'm sure we can see the general statistics we can I can work with Paul to look that stuff up yeah well I think I think anybody can get the statistics like you said those numbers and have those questions here so so at the March meeting we'll bring those surveys with the statistics all find out from public health and probably um K just to see you know

100because there could be some pieces there and just to see to bring all that so you can see the dollars that were there we can see how many students took the test and then what did we use how did we use that information to to do something you know differently and then that would give you better information yet yeah I think mean if it's something we don't have to approve today let's get a little bit more information at least about it and find out you know I don't you know if it's if it's $2,000 that we gained out of it you know I don't know that we necessarily you know let's cut out the questions we want to ask and ask them you know because there's a lot of good information there but if it's

101$20,000 that the you know was gained you know we're starting to talk about a different number right you know maybe there's benefit that we're not looking at that so I'll bring back the past survey results um dollars that were included and then probably just yeah how many students took the test and I don't know if they'll give us how many opted out so we have that so that would be our so my math is right is that our seniors would have taken it as a nth grader is that correct yeah they did it three years ago so I believe so yeah three years ago would have been 22 I'm looking at the information so it's okay they did in 2022 and you have can you provide us what those questions were not I'm sure we

102can look back there so just to see if what was added what you know what has changed um but if it was our seniors that took it as night I mean I guess I'd be interested also to hear what you know did they answer you know there's a lot of questions when you get to that third level I mean it's like 53 Pages worth of stuff there there's a lot of questions there that you know then Kevin has to coordinate it with the MCAS at the same that's we try to try to work it through there but we could take it towards the very end of may as well to give I would suggest that we give more than two weeks I suggest that we give you know four to six weeks so family so

103it's not well that was no we've had it here four to six weeks and you look and like I said we would probably put out instant alerts beforehand to say we are providing this survey tomorrow you know the sample um and that's what I you'll notice on what I shared with you it does say Do not distribute right it says for it says the reason why I asked you C because like it says for act purposes only do not distribute and so I wasn't sure you know so I don't even know if we can put it online yet I'll have to just double check it I'm not sure why it has to be but now families can come in and look at it they can say hey I need to look at it first so

104they could definitely do that but I think we if we take action at the March 5th meeting I don't think we plan to administer it Kevin with this work to do it like the second week in May are you done with all the testing may may is pretty wide open so we would just do it in May so that well I would think we probably we probably talk about it on March Mar 5th and maybe it's action for the okay March you know sure business meeting I mean I I don't think we have to okay take action that first but at least we can have the discussion about it and see where things are at any other discussion on that does that seem like a feasible plan to everyone is there something we can pass

105on to our legislators I wonder if they even know that these questions exist I think some have I I'm not sure that all them have but I think that like I said you know in the group that I in our superintendent group there was two other districts that were reviewing it and one other neighbor just said we've developed our own survey we're going to do our own work and somebody else said we're not doing it I think there was maybe three or four that said we're administering it just using the opt out piece so but yeah I I'm not sure that they do that might be something yeah you might want to just reach out to legislators and say so I would think some are aware of it but maybe not all all right and

106we will move to um graduation ceremony so um that should be in the on in the packet there I got this information yesterday from Mr wood uh but it does show you that actually again there's a significant number of folks that are okay moving graduation earlier um even for this year so it says you know keep the current time was a fairly small number I think the 51.2% and the 34.9% were you know that they were okay with going earlier um I mean there was even a feeling of 6:30 that seems to now but if you look at the comment we did have one person that said we have people coming from out from out of town so it would be nice to have no earlier than seven but you know currently we're 7:30 I

107don't know if we everything would be ready from the schools perspective by 6:30 I just didn't know you know what your thought was on that piece let me just double check to see if I can get better information or so we can look at those numbers so you can see that better I know there wasn't a ton of people that had them last year but we had our party right after and that doesn't leave you there isn't much time I mean it's it's kind of an In-N-Out deal and you get you know pretty much you don't get there till probably 9:30 I think it was almost 10:00 before we actually even showed up to our party and you know by 11: you know oh by by 11 most people are obviously done they're they're going

108home but anyway at least you're hoping they are the one hosting well yeah so um so yes it does definitely does present a a challenge that way if you're going to do that but again that was a small there was a very small number of parties I know last year that were on the actual graduation day so I don't know that it affected a ton of people but um I would think that we've talked about it a couple different times I think to move it up okay um so and we didn't have anybody that reached out to say hey the graduation announcements are done you can't do that change now so because that was my own concern of the game I'm sorry oh Kayla's already sent Darren probably has his done but I do not

109no we talk about it last night so I think it would be good if we could make that decision so families know if they are getting those ready because I realize we're oh we're almost to March already unbelievable so so I don't know if we want to I don't necessarily have a recommendation I think 7 o'clock is I mean that's usually pretty standard or you want to go at 6:30 I just did we sent out a survey or you know the question and it looks like the favorable is 6:30 would agree so let's make it I I would I mean there's 51% that said 630 and and then Nate also pointed out that is it the who's it's the 630 or 7 is the purple so even that number there is um you know there

110so okay so 6:30 and again I guess we'll get feedback obviously if it works well we we better yeah I think we better I'll make that MO is there a second second take a roll call vote gross yes Porter yes sandstead yes sour yes I'll be a yes olich yes and Vincent Yes provided we provide frequent frequent frequent updates and reminders because that's a pretty entrenched time in our district so we're going to have to really make a big effort in the paper and everywhere else that that's a significant time change good note okay then we will move on to the state wrestling tournament closure and so like I said that's my understanding um because I think my first year here I think we had State wrestling and that was the understanding there is that

111we close school uh and then staff would um we have some opportunities for them to should say opportunity expectations to make up that work they either come here or get that work made up uh those details would still be worked out with you know if we're going to do that the admin team would get that worked out and get that out to our staff but just wanted to to check and see um I know that on occasion the comment that I get but it's not very many people but once in a while they say takes you a long time to make a decision about WEA but it doesn't take you a long time to close for a sporting event and it does take me a long time to close for a sporting event as well

112because I realized there's an impact there as well but one of the comments that somebody shared with me yesterday is they said however our kids have worked so hard and here's an opportunity to support them as well and so let's keep that to the Forefront and our community does an excellent job supporting right I mean I think of basketball boys basketball last year we had a great turnout but I just wanted uh to see what the board's thought was on that like I said my understanding it's been practice and kind of I don't think we have a written procedure but I think it was what as far as that as a right I think we've we've done this for several years now um one thing I would say to that is we know that February

11327th the wrestlers are going to wrestle at the state tournaments pretty easy to make that you know I can't say for sure that it's going to blow and snow tomorrow you know so those are forecasts that we know are in most of the time inaccurate so um you know to that to that end we can schedule this easily because we know what day it is and we know that this has been our practice it's it's a little more difficult when you say say well we're going to close school cuz the weatherman said it's going to snow tomorrow and the sunshines people get frustrated with that you know so you know that's that's more difficult so anyway that's just my two cents but that has been our practice um I guess I don't see why we

114would change at this point unless somebody has a strong inkling against that um knowing full well that and I don't want to jinx anybody but we have couple other sports teams this winter that you know could do well as as well so yeah just to be on the radar that this may not be the last one that we and we just have to look at our minutes so that's the other part that all comes into this especially so as you saw um Mr wood did a nice job of putting a very clear expl explanation out to our staff the decision process that we made Sunday evening because remember we have 1,22 hours of uh in school for our 7th through 12th grade students and so we're now nearing that as we close for Section football

115vol while remember was not that was the Friday of a staff day so those hours don't count however we closed early for that on weather related delays those don't count against us but any planned ones for our two-hour early outs for conferences for professional development those all have to be calculated there Elementary as fewer hours that's why we closed on Friday or excuse me Monday for the elementary one devices didn't go home we didn't to know that by Thursday at 12:30 um to do that and so we just knew it was going to be some chaos there to do that they have few our hours and so they did professional development as we did our hours knowing that we also knew that Friday night that the wrestling was going to state so but we still

116have some flexibility there just a little bit but we'll I'll have to bring that revised calendar for the board to approve but yeah we we'll be fine with this here all right any other discussion look for a motion to approve so and a second roll call vote gross Porter yes sandstead yes sour yes I'll be a yes ol yes and Vincent yes so we'll get information out to families and our staff of kind of what the expectations are for our staff and things we'll work on that as an admin team of next day or two and get that out to them and have them ready to go all right that brings us to the bottom of the page number eight motion to adjourn second motion carries thanks Claire yeah byebye