December 9 2024 School Board Meeting

001I pledge allegiance to the United States of America under God. I've had a first school board meeting, and I think you're all here for happy reasons. It's delightful. But the first item is approval of the agenda. I think everyone saw that there's an addendum to the side. That's part of the consent agenda, just a refreshed version. But if everyone has an approval, can I get a motion and a second? Second by Byron. Everyone in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, that item passes. Next is the consent agenda. If there's no changes or discussion, can I get a motion and approval for the consent agenda? So moved. Thank you, Tim. John, second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, that item passes. Thank you. Next is our listening session report

002with Board Member Timani. There was no community members in attendance, so there is nothing to report. Oh, pull your mic closer. Closer. Better? Here we go. No community members were present, so nothing to report. Short report. Thank you, Tim. Next item, and the big one, recognitions. I'll turn it over to Superintendent. All right, I'm going to get real close to the microphone so everybody can hear me back there. Give me a thumbs up if you can hear me in the back. Okay, well. We are excited this evening. We have some very large groups gathered here to honor and to appreciate. And we are going to start with our GARLO student council. So if GARLO student council people, come on. Oh, here we go. Sarah's making way for them. Come on through. Let's give our GARLO

003student council a round of applause, please. All righty. Young council members will need you to face this way Excellent good to see you and if you do get the opportunity to speak as part of this evening you're going to need to go to the backside of that podium where you are currently standing and Talking right into one of these so it's not just about us hearing you It's also about the people who are watching this on TV because you're on TV All right. So we have our GARLO counselor, Sarah Orman, here as well. So let's see Sarah. And these students were nominated by their peers back in third grade, allowing them to step into their leadership roles as fourth graders from the very first day of this school year. Since then, they've worked closely with

004kindergartners, helping with morning announcements and participated in monthly assemblies and school-wide incentive challenges. So, Ms. Orman, if you could please introduce the members of the student council we have here this evening. I would love to do that. So with us today, we have Auggie Haas, and Nellie Joubert, and Rex Harwood, and Ramona Saenz-Wilhelm, and Evangeline Correa Matos. Oh, that deserves another round of applause. And now, young council members, is the time where you go around the other side of the podium. This thing bends so you can just grab it and pull it down to wherever your mouth is there you go and the Fantastic the your fellow elected officials up here are now going to ask you some questions. Are you ready? Excellent, so we're probably gonna try to keep it to one question per

005group But does anyone have a burning question for Garlow? Otherwise, I'm ready Okay, I'm ready. What's the favorite event you've had at Garlow during your time on student council? Hoot hike. Hoot hike. Good answer. Next. You can answer. When we were doing the water park thingy. Probably the first day of school when we got to help the kindergartners. Good. I agree with August, and something that we just did as student council, we were naming one of the new trails, and that was really fun. Veterans Day. Veterans Day. Good choices. Well, thank you. And now we'd like you all to come up front, all the way up front. Stand here. And now look that way, and we're going to take a picture. Thank you, guys. all right and now i believe friendly hills so now next

006we'll call up members from the friendly hill student council come on up friendly hill student council and i believe kristen quinn's here somewhere okay she's stuck she couldn't find parking maybe while we're waiting for christian why don't you turn around and wave to all these people in the audience because they're pretty impressed with you give them a now give them a round of applause okay So, looks like we have Friendly Hills Councilor Kristen Quinn here, and we also have Ashley Hall, and we have the members of our Friendly Hills Student Council, and they develop leadership skills by organizing school events and serving as the voice of the student body. So, Ms. Quinn and Ms. Hall, please introduce the members here tonight and tell us about your student group. All right, well, hello. Like you said,

007my name is Kristen Quinn, 8th grade school counselor, and this is Ashley Hall, our school culture liaison. We are the advisors for Friendly Hills. middle school student council and we want to thank you for taking the time to hear about the role and initiatives the student council has planned for this school year. Our student council is composed of about 40 students, approximately 10 from each grade in grades five through eight. The purpose of Friendly Hill Student Council is to serve as the voice of our student population and strives to create a positive school community. We meet monthly and do community building activities, plan student council events, and foster leadership skills. So one of the most rewarding initiatives that our student council, some members get to be a part of this year, is a group called

008Empowered. And this is a collaboration with one of our center-based classrooms. So this is a classroom of students with different abilities and different needs. So once a week, we have some of our student council members that are part of the Empowered group go to physical education class with this center-based classroom. The goal of Empowered is to build a school culture that really values, respects, and encourages inclusivity and diversity. And so students in both our general education population and our center-based kids get to have a weekly gym class together where they can form relationships or friendships, work together as a team, and learn from one another. So having said that, I want to introduce some of our student council members that are going to explain a little bit more about what else we're planning for this

009year. So, yep. Sam. Leah. I'm Leah. My name's Sam. I am part of the Empowered group, and each week we do a fun activity in physical education. Last week we played a get to know you game where we threw a beach ball around with different questions on it. We also played volleyball in the gym and practiced dribbling and passing. I like being part of this group because I get to spend time with kids I normally don't get to spend time with and also I get to learn what these kids like to do and what their passions are. I like to be part of this group because it gives me a chance to connect with students I don't know well and get to know their points of view. Hi, I'm Honora. Some of the things that

010we participate in are planning spirit weeks, candy grams, school dances and rallies, and school announcements. Another thing we're doing this week is sending friendly grams to teachers and staff. Well, that sounds like some fantastic work. That deserves a round of applause. Okay, thank you very much. I have an idea, and I'm using board prerogative to, or chair prerogative, that's what it's called. Okay, you're gonna... organizedly starting with Thomas down here walk by the mic haha I picked on you because I know your name you're filed by the microphone tell me your name and your grade and your favorite event you've had this year and then we're all gonna line up up front and we're taking another big photo so does that make sense yeah go ahead Thomas and follow him follow him there you go

011I'm Thomas I'm in seventh grade and I liked the warrior rally we had I'm Audra Moore and I really liked the school dance. My name is Jackson Osmondson and so far I have just enjoyed being a part of student council and doing all the random activities that we like doing. Oh, my bad. I'm in sixth grade. My name is Nate Larabee. I'm in eighth grade and my favorite part was probably the warrior rally. My name is Bennett Fisher. I'm in eighth grade, and my favorite event was probably Spirit Week. My name is Sam Drummond. I'm in eighth grade, and my favorite event was Spirit Week. My name is Sophie Phillips, and my favorite event was the Warrior Rally. My name is Nolan Melcher. I'm in sixth grade, and my favorite event was the Warrior Rally.

012My name is Noah Vopel. I'm in seventh grade, and my favorite event was Spirit Week. My name is Jacob Mills. I'm in eighth grade, and my favorite event was Spirit Week. My name is Henry. I'm in the eighth grade, and my favorite event we've held so far has been the Spirit Week. My name is Naomi. I'm in sixth grade, and my favorite part was Spirit Week. My name is Carson, and my favorite thing that we did was Spirit Week. My name is Beatrix. I'm in sixth grade, and my favorite thing we did was the Native American, like, Warrior Rally thing we did. My name's Anaya Bisavivich. I'm in eighth grade, and my favorite thing was Spirit Week. I'm Leah Hammes. I'm in eighth grade, and my favorite thing we did was also Spirit Week. I'm

013Leah Powell. I'm in eighth grade, and my favorite event was the Warrior Rally. My name is Hannah Bayan. I'm in eighth grade, and my favorite thing was Spirit Week. My name is Lizzie Kronchnal. I'm in eighth grade, and my favorite thing was Spirit Week. My name is Zoe Horwitz, and I'm in fifth grade. My favorite thing was the Warrior Rally. My name is Yoni Ayal, and the favorite part of the event at my school was probably Spirit Week. My name is Jaden Omana-Bronis, and my favorite thing was probably the Warrior Rally. My name is Xavier Brown, and I'm in fifth grade, and my favorite thing was probably the Warrior Rally. My name is Saudi, and I'm in sixth grade, and my favorite event was probably the Warrior Rally. My name is Logan. My favorite event

014was the Warrior Rally. My name is Camilo. I'm in sixth grade. My favorite event was the Warrior Rally. My name is Anna Larson. I'm in eighth grade, and my favorite event was Spirit Week. Very nice. I'm feeling pretty optimistic for the school pride and spirit in this group. It's delightful. So if you can, maybe you need to make two lines, like taller people in the back, shorter people in the front, and board members will need to stand up for the taller eighth graders. Don't fight. Use some more kiddos on this side. It's OK to smile. Anybody else? Oh, we're still going. I'm sure we'll share the one that Sarah took somehow. Right? We'll get it out there. All right, thank you guys. Sorry. Hi. Thank you. All righty. Coach Klusnick, we're going to have to

015have you part the Red Sea and come on through. I don't even see him. He's there. I see him in the back. We are going to go on. Next, we're going to be bringing up our state-level performing student-athletes from Two Rivers. And we are going to start with the boys and girls cross-country team. And I'll also call up our cross-country coach, Eric Klusnick, who was also named Metro East Conference Coach of the Year for his work with both the boys and the girls cross-country teams. Good evening, Coach Kuznick. And I'll hand it over to you. Either one is fine. You can move them up, move them down. And if you could help introduce the team, that'd be great. Yeah, so thanks for having us. We just saw everybody file out, and because of the massive

016numbers, we had to park down the road, so I actually did get to run in, which is pretty appropriate. So we don't have everybody from the team here tonight, but we had three girls. do this a little bit. Three girls individually qualify for the state meet and the team narrowly missed qualifying as a group and then our boys team as a team qualified we ended up on the boys side placing seventh overall at the state meet which closer to the microphone. We ended up placing seventh. Could we close the door just because it's hard to hear Coach Klusnick tell about our awesome season. I also, and the kids can attest to this, I don't have a huge yelling threshold. I can't get my voice up very much, so this is kind of the tone I

017deliver at. And they're kind about being quiet for me. So yeah, we had three girls individually qualify. We had our boys team qualify as a team. The boys team ended up taking seventh overall at the state meet, which is really remarkable. It is hands down the best boys team I've ever coached from top to bottom. Every single guy on the team at some point spent time running junior varsity for us, which I think is a testament to just the group of guys and how hard they were willing to work. In terms of the guys here behind me, unless someone has snuck in since I've come in, we've got Naya Fernandez. Naya, you want to give a little wave? We've got Max Molinaro. Max can give a little wave. Hey, Max. We have Haken Hansen. And

018we have Lucas Esten for the four guys behind me. And the last I've missed everybody, those are the four that are here behind me. We also had Quinn Kyes, Silas Bloom. George Dahliger, Brady Sullivan, Riley Tillander, and that would round out our guys team where we have nine, and on the girls side, Sophia Egan, Josie Miller, and Charlotte Chandler were our three individual qualifiers. I am fiercely proud of this group of athletes. It is one of the great joys of my career to get to work with them. So just really thankful that you guys are willing to take a minute and recognize their efforts. So thank you for having us tonight. Guys, you want to jump in and say anything? That's a classic distance runner. Do you guys have any questions for them? Oh, I

019think we do. Yeah, of course you do. Especially when they shook their heads no. All right. What board member has a question for these four young men? Morgan's ready. Hi. Thanks for being here. What would you tell somebody who was thinking that maybe they wanted to join cross country, but they're not sure and they're a little nervous about it? Why should they join? Nah, that feels like a good one. Well, I'd definitely say it's worth giving it a shot. Even if you don't like it, after a little bit, you can always stop. But I enjoy the sport a lot, and I think it's very welcoming to anybody. And it's a good thing to come out and try. Do the rest of you have anything you want to say? Oh, I got it. Okay. It's a

020very open community, I would say. And, yeah, everybody gets a chance. There's no cuts. And, yeah, Kluze pays attention to all of us just as much as he does to, like, the top guys. And, yeah, that's all I would say. Will you quickly tell us what grade you're all in so we know how much longer we get to keep recognizing you? I'm a junior. Junior, good. I'm also a junior. Great. I'm a freshman. I'm a senior. All right. Thank you very much. Congratulations. You want to come up? If I could, just before we, well, you can come on up, but I just wanted to comment. I had a great time coming to the conference meet this year. And I... have been before, but every year I am blown away by the level of encouragement, camaraderie,

021the way that this team bonds as a team. And I'm really glad that you both mentioned it as a reason to come out for the team, the community that you build. It's evident. I see how you care for the sport, but it seems that you care more about each other. and how to, and when I see you running as a pack this year, all first across the finish line, first, second, third, but regardless of your place, you are working together as a team, and I think it's a truly admirable example of what it means to be a warrior, of what it means to be a teammate, and of what it means to be the type of person that we hope we are enabling our young people to be. So thank you very much for who

022you are and what you've done. Thank you, thank you guys All right next we're gonna bring up our girls diving state qualifier say to Gus Gustafson and I will also call up dr. Jess Kabeck associate principal at Two Rivers to help introduce the Actually, no word to help introduce data and then well, we've got some more people coming up after this All right, good evening everyone. Head coach of girls swimming and diving, Chris Shogan, couldn't be here tonight, so I am happy to introduce Zeta and share her coach's write-up for everyone tonight. While a season's success doesn't hinge on whether or not an athlete makes it to the state tournament, being one of the last 32 divers in Minnesota to compete is the pinnacle of high school sports. Zeta reached that peak this year as

023only a junior. After narrowly missing out on qualifying last year, she returned this season with an unmatched determination and commitment to making it to state. And then she suffered an ankle injury within the first month of the season. Despite being unable to dive, she came to practice every day and did everything she could to stay prepared and compete. Once she had finally cleared, she attacked each and every practice. Her hard work paid off, and as she broke school records, was named to an all-conference team and took third at sections. Seda is an ultimate competitor, the perfect leader, and the biggest cheerleader to her teammates. Congratulations on an incredible season. Well, you're the only one, so we get to talk to you as long as we want now. No congratulations, Ada. This is not a question.

024I would like you to quickly go through all the activities you do in high school for the audience to know. So in the fall, obviously, I do diving. And then in the winter, I'm on the dance team. In the spring, I take a break from sports, but I'm still doing both club. I'm part of NHS, Letters of Love. Link crew, I think that's it. That's enough. All right, question for Seda. I'll answer. So Seda, I'm curious to know, given the fact that last year you didn't qualify and you came into this year with a lot of adversity, what was your mental mindset after last year approaching this year? Yeah, so I would say last year I was definitely not... happy with how I did at sections. I had a few rough dives that kind of

025cost me it. So I think going into this season, I was mostly determined to just prove to myself that I could do better. And also, I definitely had some inside jokes with some of my teammates of section 3AA doesn't know what's coming. So I think that was mostly my mindset. do it for myself and also do it for my team because I know it's exciting. So yeah. I love the fact that you've overcome so much adversity and came out on the other side extremely successful. So congratulations. Yeah, congratulations. Thank you. Will you come up and take a picture with all of us? Of course. I like this. I think we should always do it this way. Okay. That was easy. Thanks, Dana. We are yet, we have one more set of honorees this evening. And

026so finally we will, oh, I'm sorry. Finally, we'll bring up the Two Rivers students who participated on the state champion Dakota United soccer team. So come on up. And helping us introduce the team members here is Jordan Sanders. I did tell them I was going to come in and embarrass them. But I'll just wait for my notes to save us some embarrassment. Tonight we're thrilled to celebrate an incredible achievement by the Dakota United soccer team which includes several talented students from Two Rivers High School. This exceptional team ended a championship drought by defeating the defending CI adapted soccer state champions Burnsville, Farmington, Lakeville with a decisive 3-0 victory. After years of hard work and three consecutive runner-up finishes, the Hawks claim the title capping off an extraordinary season with a stellar 9-1-1 record and a

027shutout in the championship game. Please let me recognize the three Terribor students on this team this year. Ryan Ergo, Addie Smith, and Oran Hill. I think we can find a question for you guys. I would like to point out that I think we have a new record of recognizing two school board members' children tonight, which is pretty special. We didn't call out yours, but we can call out yours. All right, does anyone have a question for these three? Go ahead, John. I'd love if you could start out by sharing what positions do you play, either position or positions that you play on your team? I do offense, defense, and center. Awesome. I do forward, center, and defense, too. I play goalie and sometimes forward. Very nice. Thank you. Maybe what was the most exciting part?

028Yeah. Like, was there a particular game that had something exciting that happened? Did anybody score a goal? We don't get a lot of state champions here. I don't know what to ask. Okay. Tim, did you have a question? Did you have a question? Go ahead. Oh, he thought of something. Good. I scored a first goal. It was awesome and good. Congratulations. A goal also. Nice. Good job, Maddie. Also scored a goal. There you go. Okay. All right. Are we ready to take a picture? You want to come line up here? Stand in front of your dad. Wow. We've reached the end of our recognitions. Thank you, everyone. All right, next item. Jason, you're up. We don't need to take a picture with you, but we're ready. We can if you want. I figure this is

029the most exciting part of the evening. Absolutely. I know it is for me. Good evening chair Larson superintendent Olson Skog and board members tonight I will be walking you through our truth and taxation presentation We'll start out with a few housekeeping items as the board knows this is required meeting That must take place between the 25th of November and the 30th of December It has to be at or after 6 o'clock and on a designated day Obviously, this is the designated day for our district The agenda for tonight's meeting is to give some background on school funding, discuss the district's budget, the proposed tax levy, and allow time for public comment. The Minnesota state, Minnesota Constitution sets how we fund public schools. It's written into the legislature. I'm just going to read the slide, but

030it gives you an idea what this is based on. The state statute sets the formulas and most revenue is based on a per pupil basis. These formulas provide the maximum level of authority the district can levy on property tax. The district can levy less than the max, but it cannot levy more. Referendums for capital and operating needs can also be submitted by the board to the voters for approval. As we can see on this next slide, that the general education revenue from fiscal year 2003 to fiscal year 2025 has not kept pace with inflation. The state would need to increase the formula by about $1,364 or an increase of around 19%. We did receive 4% in 2024 and 2% in 2025. But as you can see from the chart, these increases at best slowed the

031significant growth in underfunding when compared to the dollars we received to inflation. Even with the recent increases from the state, costs statewide for special education will be underfunded by about $455 million by fiscal 2027. By law, a school district's budgets are divided into separate funds based on their purpose. You can see the different funds here on this slide. In slide 9, we show the expected revenue expenditures in our general fund, our food service, community service, building construction, and debt service. Our revenue projections for all funds are just over $115 million, the largest portion of that being the general fund. This next pie, our general fund revenue comes from three major sources. It comes from state, federal, and local sources. The local property tax revenue is the key discussion for tonight as this is what the

032board is approving, our local levies. As the board is well aware, our general fund revenues are spent in a variety of ways with the vast majority of those being for salaries and wages. You can see the breakout on the slide for each one of those. Sections. Something to keep in mind as the title of this slide describes changes in tax levy does not determine change in budget. There are a few reasons why that is the case. First, the tax levy is determined by state determined formula. Second, some increases in tax levy are revenue neutral, meaning an increase is offset by reduction in state aid. Third the expenditure budget is limited by state set formulas voter approved levies and fund balance Lastly an increase in tax does not always correlate to an equal increase in budget

033It is always helpful to put things in context this slide answers the question How much would a homeowner pay if their house was in a different school district? In comparison to surrounding districts, based on homes with an estimated market value of $350,000, we are near the bottom. And due to the passing of a referendum by Indra Grove Heights this past November, we will be the lowest for taxes payable in 2025, which is what the board is discussing tonight. Looking at the difference in the cycles compared to the school district in the levy and budget cycles compared to the city and the county you will notice the budget year for the school starts July 1st whereas the city and county begins January 1st This next slide is an example of a proposed tax statement that gets

034sent to property owners and gives details based on taxes levied for each jurisdiction While the print is pretty small and it's hard to see, I can tell you there is a separate line in this statement for city, county, and school taxes. As we have mentioned previously, the school district has limited authority to levy taxes. MDE calculates the levy based on categories set by state law and voter approval. Step five was started, we are in, or the process of LELE has many steps. Tonight we are asking the board to complete step five in this process. Step five was started back in the summer as the district provided information to MDE, who in turn provided a draft of the proposed maximum authority to the district in September. In September, the board approved the proposed tax levy amounts,

035and in November, proposed property tax statements were sent out to all property owners. Tonight, following this hearing and comments, the board will certify final levy amounts. The proposed tax levy for this year is an increase of $3.9 million, or an 11% increase over taxes payable in 2024. The following slide provides the board with a detailed categorical breakdown. In the next three slides, I will explain the main differences, but this gives you a kind of a synopsis of each category so you can see where those changes are. I will explain the main differences between taxes our residents paid in 24 compared with what we are proposing in 2025 taxes. In the general fund revenues, there's an increase of $1 million in voter-approved referendum. This is based on an estimated enrollment. It also includes an inflationary increase.

036The next change is on this slide. Given these levies are based on estimates of enrollments, levy amounts are adjusted up or down in subsequent year's taxes based on the actual enrollment. For the next year's tax... There is a positive adjustment of approximately 500,000 because the actual enrollment exceeded our projections at the time. The last major change I will detail is our debt service funds levy. There is an increase of about 1.1 million due to the district bonds issued in August for the indoor air quality project for our two middle schools, Heritage and Friendly Hills. This next slide illustrates how this levy impacts individual taxpayers. We have mentioned there are many factors that go into an increase or decrease in levies, which you can see some examples of on this next slide. Tonight, the board is

037approving this size of the pie, or how much the district is levying in total. How much each homeowner or business owner pays depends on the market value of their home or business. The next two slides, we answer a question we often hear. We are often asked why some home taxes go up more than others, or in some cases, taxes go down even though the market value went up. In other cases, taxes might have gone up more on a percentage basis than the market value grew. How does this happen? Let's look at two houses. over two years to explain this. To make it as simple as possible, we'll pretend there's a district that only has two houses. In this pretend district, the school board approved a total levy of $500. Since both houses have the same

038market value the first year, they both split that $500 evenly, $250 apiece. In the second year, the market value for both homes increased, but one increased more than the other. So now since the levy stayed the same the house is worth more the house that is worth more will pay a larger percentage and The net of that is the one houses taxes go down Even though their market value went up and the other houses taxes increased more on a percentage basis Than the other than then their market value did In 2023, the Minnesota state legislature passed laws affecting property taxes payable in 2025. One of those is tax benefit to homeowners by increasing the homestead inclusion. Now let's look at some examples over time. We will illustrate this in two ways. First, we'll look at...

039Look at it if we held the value of the home constant as this is something we don't control and is complicated based on how the market value of the other properties in the district changes as you saw illustrated in the previous slides. After that we will apply a constant rate of change, though we know that this is not how it actually happens. We also use the tax rates in West St. Paul as taxes will vary from city to city. This table provides a host of examples at varying market levels for both residential and commercial properties. Here you can see a comparison where we held the market value constant on a $200,000 and $400,000 residential property. One thing I've drawn the board's and community's attention to is that our taxes have remained relatively level despite a

040few voter-approved levies. The key here is that even though voters agreed to paying more taxes, they didn't have to pay as much more as we projected they might because more businesses moved in and residential properties were built. Each time this happens, they pay their portion of the tax pie and it blunts the impact of voter-approved increases to our other levies. This, you can see the same description on a constant level for a commercial property. Increase in value residential as I show this slide and the next one Please remember that there is more comp it is more complicated than these graphs show Remember our example is a district of two homes both homes properties increase but at different rates in these examples We basically pretend all homes went up equally St. Oh, I was a slide

041ahead. I'm sorry increase in value that the previous slide this shows how it affects the increase in commercial property this One of these last slides. These are credits and deferrals available to homeowners. These are different Instances where owner homeowners can take advantage of these depending on who you are the last slide The next steps I would ask the board to accept public comments on the proposed levy, followed by certification of the 2025 property tax levy. Thank you. Thank you. So do we have to have a resolution on the table to accept public comment, or we do public comment first? No public comment was posted, so if there is any public comment, we would welcome it at this time. I'm going to take that as a no. Now we know we have a resolution on the

042table, correct? Yes. Do you want to read anything or do you want me to just read the resolution? I'll let you read it since it's not fun. That's a great idea. So it be resolved by the School Board of Independent School District number 197 that the final 2024 payable 2025 property tax levy is adopted in the amount of $39,811,438 and further that the school board clerk is authorized to sign the document used to certify the levy to the county auditor. That being said can I get um first and a second so we can discuss Thank You Byron motion to approve proposed property tax levy for 2025 can I get a second second Oh Tim's hand first Tim's the second um for the first and a second is there any discussion or questions For Jason or

043for the superintendent go ahead Byron Jason the only question I would have or and maybe you can give some insight I believe the examples you're giving are all West st. Paul yes, so because we have Mendota Heights and Sunfish Lake and some of Egan's is there much of a difference in How that would affect those are the other communities? Do we have any idea? The school rate would be the same. So the school district and the school board for what they're approving tonight. is only about the school line on that property tax. So what homeowners will see on their property tax statement will vary in terms of increases that are set by their own city. The county is the same. But the actual rate based on market value would be the same from city to

044city within our school district. Thank you. Any other questions? Are we ready to vote? All right. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? That item passes. Thank you, Jason. Thank you. All right. Finally. Finally, we got to the student reps. Thank you for being patient over there. I turn it over to you. Good evening, everyone. My name is Patrick Von Block, and I'm excited to kick off our report tonight. And I'm Noelle Hassan. It's great to be here and share some updates we have about the district this month. A lot has happened recently, and we're excited to highlight some key moments from our district today. From student achievements to exciting initiatives, there's so much to celebrate and discuss. Let's dive right into it. Sorry. Okay, there we go. Okay, so starting

045off with Moreland Elementary. Moreland has had some pretty big things this past month. Moreland has just finished up their annual fundraiser, Square One Art, and this opportunity allowed parents to buy keepsakes of their children's artwork. Moreland's library has also just received a $2,000 grant from the Minneapolis Foundation and... Midewa contents to a community. This money will be used to purchase around 100 new books for the students at Moreland Elementary. Moving on to Pilot Knob. Pilot Knob has just successfully implemented their first day of STEM Sparks in their school on November 26th, and it allowed students at Pilot Knob to be more involved in STEM activities at their school during the school day. And then, Garlow had successfully hosted Roller Blading Night and lots of families had participated and had engaged in community engagement. And then

046finally, Mendota's Kindergarten Showcase went through smoothly and had a great turnout. Now moving on to middle school. The eighth graders at both Heritage and Friendly Hills had took part in touring two rivers and had a wonderful time. I can speak from experiences. My twin brothers that are eighth graders had so much fun and they were so excited to come here. Here comes two rivers next year. And then the eighth graders at Heritage had visited the University of Minnesota College of Biological Sciences and they learned a lot about researching techniques and different things that they could learn at the University of Minnesota. And now on to high school. In November, Two Rivers earned a spot on the AP Honor Roll, which celebrates schools that do an exceptional job at teaching and offering advanced placement courses. We

047had 48% of our class of 2024 take an AP exam, and 34% ended up earning a college credit by scoring above a three. And we are just very proud of seeing so much academic achievement. and seeing the reach it has in our school. On November 14th, students got to test new potential school lunch menu items, including chicken tinga, cherry blossom chicken, and sriracha chicken. Students helped decide which items made the cut and which items did not make the cut and can be added to our lunch menu. In November, we had a general spirit of giving back to the community, which was very prominent. At Two Rivers, we hosted a harvest pack where we exceeded 20,000 bags of food packed. I also volunteered for the West St. Paul versus South St. Paul harvest pack, where I

048saw many of our school board members there. And the advanced placement government classes took a trip to the Capitol this past week on Thursday and Friday to try out mock legislature. So they got to choose a bill and follow the bill through committees and then all the way to the House floor. And finally, this weekend, Two Rivers debate placed... third overall at the Minnesota Classic Debate Tournament, which we hosted at Two Rivers. And we saw the varsity team of Tommy Larson and McKinley Terrier earn third in varsity overall. And that's one team of only eight varsity teams to actually break at the tournament, which is such an incredible achievement. And we also had the top two novice teams overall with Levi Paper and Sikar Basiel win the tournament overall. And so that wraps up our

049student report. And thank you for taking the time to hear about what's going on with our district. We are always so proud of all the incredible work and accomplishments by our district, our district students, staff and community. And we're looking forward to next month. Thank you again for your time and support. We appreciate it. Thank you, guys. I would like to add that Patrick's team went four and two. You did very well. So congratulations. Thank you guys. Any questions for them? Otherwise, we'll move on to the superintendent's report. Go ahead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening and welcome to the last school board meeting of 2024. And we were having lunch today, myself and some of the people on the district office team, and reflecting on this stat. Today in 2024, if you think back

050to 1990, not too long ago, right? 1990 to today is about the same distance as 1990 was from 1956. So that just seems a little bit, we're moving through time here. And maybe I'm reflecting because I've had a recent milestone birthday. I don't know. I'm nostalgic. It's just happening. Things are... Falling apart. Okay, so as we reflect on the year, I think there is a lot to celebrate. We've had a strong start to the school year. We've had an incredible fall season as has been detailed in a number of ways and I'm going to talk about more. We've had record high enrollment in our schools and a continuing dedication to fostering caring relationships, equitable practices, and high achievement for all of our students. So, I'd like to start with a shout out to the exceptional

051curriculum department, school leaders and staff for their work on creating an excellent transition process. This was mentioned by our student reps, but there's been lots going on for our fourth and eighth grade students. Transition years are full of excitement and uncertainty, and our teams have gone above and beyond to help students acclimate. For example, as you heard, our eighth graders recently spent a day at Two Rivers, where they explored hands-on activities. They had lunch in the cafeteria. They toured the campus with Two Rivers student leaders and attended an activity fair, highlighting the many clubs, sports, and activities that they can look forward to. Meanwhile... Our fourth graders are gearing up for fifth grade, and they are starting with their musical journeys. Middle school music staff will soon visit elementary schools to introduce them to various

052instruments and musical options to explore. And families with incoming kindergartners making that transition, please mark your calendars for kindergarten registration night on January 23rd. If your little one will be five years old by September 1st, 2025, we encourage you to come out and register, bring them along, and start their educational journey with us. Registration packets will be mailed by early January, and you can find the details for each school on our district-wide calendar. Turning to Two Rivers High School, as I mentioned, I was going to do a little bit of a recap of our fall activity season because we wrapped up with some outstanding accomplishments. This year we had 464 student athletes and 48 participants in fall activities where they showcased their dedication and success in a whole variety of ways. Collectively our fall activities

053teams earned over an average GPA of 3.36. And over the 11-week season, Two Rivers hosted 116 home games and events, which included four Minnesota State High School League section events. Since the community has invested in our schools in some pretty significant ways, we have become a very popular location for hosting section meets, swimming, track. Hello, track. We'll wait until the spring for that. I would like to mention again, though, Coach Klusnick was named the Metro East Conference Coach of the Year for his leadership with both the boys' and girls' cross-country teams, and both of which secured first-place conference finishes. Boys' soccer and football also claimed conference championships. And while the girls' swim and dive earned a strong third-place finish, and other teams rounded out the season with impressive performances. So congratulations to... our varied accomplishments

054this fall. It was a very strong start. On another note, last week we recognized the National Special Education Day, celebrating the anniversary of the nation's first federal special education law. Special education is central to our mission at School District 197, and we're proud to partner with families to meet the needs of our diverse learners. We honor the students, families, educators, and advocates who make our district an inclusive and supportive community. And lastly, a quick reminder that winter break. begins for our students on Friday, December 20th, and runs through Wednesday, January 1st. So class will resume on Thursday, January 2nd, as we look ahead to 2025. And I'll just reiterate that one. Because of the READ Act this year, we are starting our break on that. Kids won't come to school on that Friday before break,

055where we would have typically had school on that day. That's not happening this year, so that we can accomplish all of the... awesome literacy training that has been put together by our curriculum team. And with that, Madam Chair Larson, I conclude my report. Thank you, Superintendent. Next item on our agenda is the site report from Moreland. Madam Chair, we're going to... We are running significantly ahead of schedule, and so I would ask that we return to the site report when all members of the presenting team have arrived. Sounds like a plan. So the next item, we'll welcome up Sarah Lean and her special guest for a strategic framework update on SEL. I have Dr. Jessica Beck from Two Rivers with me tonight so she's gonna share the share the love as we dive into social-emotional

056learning. As you're aware we have our three focus areas we heard from Carrie Jo recently around our our work in college and career exploration. You'll hear from Dr. Mao coming up around our work in equity, and so tonight I'm here to talk to you about social-emotional learning. I wanted to start by just highlighting that at our last meeting here in this space... We heard about social-emotional learning even though nobody said this is social-emotional learning. We saw the cheerleaders that were just giving all kinds of props and kudos to their coaches and to their teammates for the work that they did in building confidence and building leadership skills. And I think that people forget that it's happening throughout your day, throughout our lives. We're working on building those competencies. A highlight for me was when Hannah

057was asked, what's your favorite thing about Somerset? And she reflected on being the mindful moment of how she started her school day and how in doing so, it really got her mind ready to face the day and do some academics. So you can see her and a classmate starting their day. Additionally, I went to a little artificial intelligence and I asked chat GPT, what SEL skills do school board members use to participate and engage in school board meetings? And as you can see on the screen, there's a lot. Would you agree? Are these things that you're doing? I hope so. Right? Showing empathy, managing stress, collaborating with others, resolving conflicts, listening actively, speaking clearly, right? There's just a host of ways that you are demonstrating strong social-emotional competencies in the work you do. Part of

058the work that we've been doing is in partnership with CASEL, the Collaborative of Academic and Social-Emotional Learning. They've grounded in research and have identified 10 different indicators that we really look at for an implementation, which again, back to our goal areas, really building that system-wide approach to SEL. For tonight's purpose, I'm going to just highlight a few of them. We're going to take a look at the... Also, can we just talk about the screen? I would have... Organize this so that the boxes fit in my executive functioning So the transfer into PowerPoint just FYI So we're gonna highlight a few areas tonight You'll see a copy of all of our implementation targets There's a ton of work that's being done and we would be here all night if we went through each one of them.

059So We'll keep it brief In the area of explicit SEL instruction, one of our targets is to develop and implement social-emotional learning lessons in health classes at grades 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10. There's a ton of information, and I didn't want to overwhelm you, but I captured one slide from the work that our curriculum team has done with our health classes. And they've taken those five different competencies, looked at some learning targets in each of those areas, and then start identifying where is this happening in those health classes. having the teachers look at it with, so Miles Lawson has done this work, and really targeting, is this in quarter one? Have we met it fully? Are we still working on it? What do we got coming up for quarter two? He's doing that with

060all of those grade levels across the district. In the integration, this is where I've asked Dr. Kabeck to step in, because she's got some really awesome work that she's doing at Two Rivers. Thank you and good evening. Yeah, so I get to brag about the high school a little bit, which is always super fun. And SEL at the high school seems kind of like a nebulous thing sometimes, right? I think when you talk about social-emotional learning, a lot of times the mind goes right to specific lessons or skills we're teaching into in a very structured way. And at the high school, that can look a little bit different. And that idea of how is that embedded throughout our entire day for students? So as we're working with the high school teams to try to figure

061out... Where is SEL showing up for us already and where can we continue to improve and grow? We're targeting this year in our collaborative teams that meet in the mornings a couple times a month for teachers to be doing some reflecting on these different domains of SEL. So we've got the five domains from CASEL. We chunked it out over the course of the year, trying to line it up where it makes sense for work teachers and students are already doing and giving our teachers a chance to collaborate with each other, share great things that are already happening. and also give them a moment to pause and have those SEL moments for themselves, right? Because we know when we're giving space and time for our professionals to do that, that's going to translate into our classroom.

062And so, you know, this is an example of one of their agendas for their collaborative teams. They were talking about self-management. They were, you know... thinking about where do we have goal setting already happening in our classrooms and trying to help our teachers see even some of the offhanded things of, hey, set a goal for turning this in or set a goal for your progress. All of that is teaching into our skills for students and they're modeling it on a regular basis. And so throughout the year, we're giving teachers time to do that reflection with each other, do some sharing and then document that so we can go back and see, okay, so now as we look at all of our SEL standards, where can we continue to grow? We've got a benefit in our

063district of doing training academies. So you may have heard other directors talk about that work In fact, I need to do a shout out. I think both to Morgan and to Patrick but We I've been leading or facilitating a SEL for adults session. I've got about 20 staff k8 teachers and Related service providers occupational therapists. It's a really nice mix of folks and then one of those uh special nights we are during our each night we invite a special guest so Superintendent Olsen-Skog started us off the first meeting of the year, maybe the second one. Morgan Steele came and was our secret guest at the end of one of our sessions, so shout out to Morgan. And then just last week, unfortunately, Noelle had to work, so we missed having her with us. But Patrick

064came and represented, and we put him to all the questions from our team. So I hope it was a good experience. One of the other training academies that we offered this year is kind of a welcome or a new staff training academy. So our staff that are starting brand new with us had an opportunity to come in before school year started and then choose from a variety of different breakout courses to help prep them for the year ahead. So I had a chance to do a session on classroom climate and really helping them dive into kind of best practices. You learned all this in college. Some of our staff are just brand new and haven't yet had the training of teacher preparation right we're doing some tier one licensed staff so to give them that

065opportunity to dive in and and plan we we did research we had some post-its around the room where people were really thinking through like what are the things i need to set up in my room to have a space where kids can be successful and learn additionally with the middle schools shifting their schedule this year we offered a training academy for our middle school staff so ran that same session but targeted more to adolescents and middle schools and what do you do with that sort of pre-teen age group to get them ready to learn and think about their classroom climate. Supportive discipline. So really thinking about how do we support students that are having challenges and complex behaviors within their school day. We've worked closely, Dr. Mao and I have worked closely on our policies

066and practices and what we do around dismissals and suspensions. But we wanted to do something more proactive. How can we help staff set up for success? And so... One of our program support specialists in the special ed work that I do has designed some student support strategies, courses, if you will, or training sessions. And she's presented it at several different schools, just tailored it to that school. Additionally, she did it for the training academy this summer to get people ready. Thinking about... both the how do you be safe, if you see that little scope on the top, safe and calm and present, to all the way we want kids on that other end where they're engaged and independent and connected. She gives strategies for teachers to help think through how to help kids reset and

067get back on track. It really ties in a lot of the conscious discipline work. I see Lori in the crowd tonight. The Early Learning Center has done a lot of work in conscious discipline, so it takes the philosophy of that. It also uses the crisis prevention intervention work that we do with de-escalation and strategies for students. All right, talking about a continuum of integrated supports, I get to chat a little bit about the BAR program at Two Rivers. And so continuing to refine and implement the building assets, reducing risks, team meeting structure, and identify support for ninth grade students. I have been in the process actually in the last few weeks of interviewing each of the BAR team teachers along with some other members of our school to figure out what would this look like

068to sustain BAR and is it worth sustaining? And I'm not through all the interviews yet, but in the process right now, a continuing theme that keeps coming up is teachers feel like the structure that they get with bar, allowing them to team together and collaborate together. helps them do the things that they've always known are what's best for kids. And putting in the supports for kids and working as an actual team, they'll talk about how they have their, you know, kind of team group chats. And if I have a kiddo first hour that is having a time, I quick throw that in the group chat so that when that kid gets to Sarah's classroom, Sarah's already scooping them up and already has them ready. And how important that is, even at the high school level,

069for kids to be seen, heard, valued, and acknowledged. And just having that structure as a team, I think, speaks to this in vast ways. Along with that then they're able to problem solve as a team and think about that whole child. Like how can we support the entire student and think about what the interventions look like for social emotional learning and kids that maybe don't have certain skills yet how can we teach into that versus thinking of it from a deficit mindset really trying to build on assets that they bring. And this is an example they get to do I-Time lessons. So these eye time lessons happen once a week, rotates through the core classes. Pictures from this one are showing a team building exercise they did in their math class, trying to build the

070tallest small straw tower, which brought a lot of laughs and eye rolls, I think. And if you click to the next one, this was another one. They got to read the poem by Maya Angelou about being a rainbow in a cloud. And so then they got to think about how can they be a rainbow in the cloud and what are some things that they could do. And this was something that they then put up in one of their classrooms. It's one of those, you know, these, an example of a targeted social-emotional learning lesson at the high school, but I think sometimes it can just be seen, oh, that's for the younger kids. Really important in community building and teaching into those skills and reminding students they're kids, right, and leaning into that for them. And

071letting that space for them to see their teacher in a role that's not necessarily that academic role all the time, really just trying to build that community. Additionally, I just want to highlight that a group of us have been part of a principal support framework. project, I guess, if you would call it. It's a partnership with the University of Minnesota and the University of Washington. So Superintendent Elson Skog, Assistant Superintendent Mao. Director Dreywitz, myself, and then principals from both the elementary and the secondary level. Dr. Kabeck has joined us this year. It's been a great partnership. But in doing so, it's a way to wrap around central office staff to think about how do we support our principals? How do we make sure they have what they need to help kids get what they need?

072They use this sort of catchphrase, if our kids are happy and proud. We're doing all the right things. And I think that's kind of our goal. How do we help kids feel good about what they're doing, help them feel proud? I mean, you look at this recognition room tonight. I mean, parents are here with cameras. That's got to make kids feel good. This is all part of SEL. So with that, I will just thank you for your time and attention and open it up to any questions. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Dr. Kavek. Questions for these two? Or comments? Or words of gratitude, which is SEL? Go ahead, Tim. Thank you. You guys can feel free to chime in with what I'm going to say. Are the students ever reminded, trying to figure out how

073to frame this, the slide that says just smile, those commas. Are they reminded as people, if we feel better. We're gonna learn better. I mean as opposed to this seeming like a separate silo up Oh, this is all the feel-good new this stuff But I mean if your classmates is high or you did a great job doing four and two and all sudden your brains in a different place So that next 45 minutes were all sudden you're looking at quadratic equations But it's gonna be easier time dealing with quadratics if you feel good I hope I hope in a way that's appropriate the kids are reminded. We're not doing this just for doing its sake, you will be a more successful student and you will be happy and proud. So thanks for all the great

074work. Yeah, I mean, I think that was clear when Patrick shared that that was highlighted in his day was the connections with classmates and all of those things. So not to speak for you, but I heard it straight from a student's mouth. And one of my goals this year is really to get more student voice. So how do I? How do I tap into the student groups? How do I find a place to hear? Like, how's it going for you? And what do you need different in? So a huge piece is student voice. Thanks. All right. Other questions? Really? All right. Anything from you two? No? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. I would propose that we take five minutes to take a little bit of a break for us and give them time

075to come in. So a five-minute recess. We'll come back at 718. Got it? All right. Lovely. I'll give to you. We should try to pass. A minute early, but you're all looking at me eagerly. So I hope you don't mind. We took a little break so you could all come in and get settled. And then we get to get up and stretch a little bit. Next item on our agenda is the site report from Moreland and I welcome principal Sully. Oh, hi. Hello everyone I am principal Sully of Moreland Elementary This is my second year in the district and second year at Moreland And so I will go ahead and answer your question for you. Yes. The second year is easier I am a cook at home, and I cooked for many years growing up

076in college. And I feel like second year of principalship is like a second try at a recipe. So you do the recipe the first time, and the meal turns out all right. It was good. It was edible. You were able to make it through the plate. But then by the time you're ready to make the meal a second time like you're adding extra Seasonings and you're maybe cooking a little more cooking a little less adding a little lemon to it And so I feel like that's what second year of principalship is you're just tweaking the plate to make it even better And Moreland is a lovely lovely place to be I am NOT one for publicly talking like this so I'm gonna go through a couple of the slides just reference who we are and

077what we do and then more importantly are the kiddos that are here with me this evening. So we are Moreland. We are a vibrant community committed to cultivating creativity, healthy living, and achievement through active learning. One of the things that we're going to talk about tonight that we focus on is that we have a theme every year, and our theme this year is Your Future is Bright. Our students see that in the artwork that they do, both in the art classroom as well as in their classrooms. They infuse it a little bit here and there. We also talk about it on our Friday wrap-ups when I make our little YouTube video. You'll get to see a preview of that because we have a consistent question that the fourth graders answer. I always have a fourth

078grade co-host. And the answer or the question the answer is, what is your future look like or what does your future look like? And they talk about their future career. So you're going to hear from five of our friends tonight to hear what they're going to be doing in or around our community in just a few years or in just a few years. And so we'll go ahead and let them share. But that's our our theme for this year. I'm gonna actually get them in front of you and then I'm gonna finish with a couple extra things about what we're focusing on but let's get the kiddos up first so if you guys want to come up here and then just make like a single file line somebody gets to start first Theo, you're the

079last one up, so you're the first one talking. Here we go, bud. You got it. We'll take turns. Theo's really excited. All right, so you'll just answer the first question for me, and then you'll go to the back of the line, and then we'll keep going, okay? So the first one is you're just giving your name, your grade, and who your teacher is. My name is Theo. I'm in fourth grade, and my teacher is Ms. Bante. My name is Jayana. I am in fourth grade, and my teacher is Ms. Banty. My name is Israel. I'm in fourth grade, and my teacher is Ms. Dietrich. My name is Liam. I'm in fourth grade, and my teacher is Mr. Powers. My name is Evelyn. I'm in fourth grade, and my teacher is Ms. Dietrich. All right, next

080one is, what is your favorite thing about Moreland? I like that everybody's very helpful and kind. I love that our teachers are very nice. I love going to school and getting to see my friends and how all the teachers know everybody's name and care about people. I love how thoughtful the teachers are. My favorite thing about Moreland is all the nice teachers. All right, next one, and I realize I flipped it on you, so I'm sorry if I confused any of my friends. Favorite thing about fourth grade or the thing you're looking most forward to in fourth grade? I'm excited about the play, and I like to read a lot. Play and read. I'm excited about the play and learning more math skills. I'm excited about the play and I really enjoyed getting to go

081to the History Museum in Capital. I'm excited about the musical and I enjoyed going to the History Museum in Capital. I enjoyed going to the History Museum in State Capital. And if you're curious what our musical is, we'll tell you in a second. We'll leave you in suspense for just a minute. Something that, because we talked about as a group that this board helps make decisions for Moreland and things that can make it from good to great. So what's one thing that you would ask this board to do that would make Moreland an even better place? To put more books in the library. Give more thanks to the janitors. Change the school start time to 7.45. More sparks. More books in the library. Okay. And then the last one, we told them that our theme

082is Your Future is Bright, so what are you going to be doing in the future? What is your dream job? I want to be an engineer. I want to be a scientist or a police officer. I would love to sometimes play professional sports. An ocean life photographer. A teacher. And if you don't know, Evelyn would be following in her mother's footsteps who happens to be a teacher at Moreland. Can we give my friends a round of applause, please? So the rest of this will be fairly boring because they're better than I am. So this is just, again, a little bit about us. Arts really is what we do. On the left-hand side is our building-wide expectations. We lean into these four pieces or these four letters. Our students know them well. Always try, respect myself

083and others. Take responsibility for learning safe and healthy choices. And these are just the four tenets that our students follow when they're walking in our hallways, when they're in our cafeterias. when they're going outside and playing at recess. So just really simple but really intentional things that we do at Moreland to make it great. Our work, obviously arts is a big thing that we do. We have a residency in all of our grade levels, so kindergarten through fourth grade, culminating in our musical at the end of the year. We also are focusing on making healthy choices and finding ways to move every day. One of the things, should you be looking to do something this Friday, you can come and see our students engaging in their rollerblading unit, which just started today. And on Friday,

084we're going to have one of the roller derby teams from the area come and skate with our kids. So if you want to come see what that might look like, you can come check that out on Friday. That sounds like a photo opportunity. You can try to skate with them. Bring your elbow pads. This is obviously still just a huge pride point. Last year when I was here, we were talking about this in mid-creation. This is now fully complete. It still is something that like you step outside and you're like, oh, that is really stinking cool. So just something that we're really proud of. And I think it just speaks to you can see our students out there. We took a picture with our muralist at the very end of the at the very end

085of the school year. And it was just a really cool experience. But that really just is an embodiment of who we are inside the building. Just showing on what it is on the outside of the building. Pretty cool thing to see. Additional points of pride, Liam actually asked for more sparks. If you're wondering what that is, is a few times a year our staff will offer to teach classes of interest. And so then students get to move throughout their day and choose some of the classes that they want to take. And so they are able to engage in just different opportunities, select class of interest, where they'd like to learn and explore new ideas and topics. This year we had things like hedgehog art, crocheting, physics, there was an escape room, there was human football,

086and there was a whole heck of a lot more. I didn't see human football, so I'm not exactly sure what that looks like, but I'm going to trust that it was a safe venture. And we'll go ahead and do Sparks three times this year, but it's a fun way for our students to be able to find maybe new interests. interests that they have. We have a lot of community partnerships. So these are just a couple of the things. Yes, Evelyn, that is you. These are just a couple of things we do. Monkey Mind Pirates is a... Partnership we've had for a number of years in our kindergarten program. They're a lovely group of people really working on social emotional learning Which I'm gathering you just heard a little bit about before me But they do

087a great job of getting our kiddos to start to acknowledge the different emotions that they have and accept that they are a good thing to have whether it's anger or happiness They're all good. It's just a matter of what we do with those emotions and so monkey mind pirates helped to do that and we actually held a An event with them this year with our kindergarten and first grade families after school as well. We get out moving in our dance room so on the right hand side of the screen that's our dance room which kiddos get to go into usually Thursdays and Fridays. There's a whole bunch of art. I'm not exactly sure what that day was. Evelyn's looking just a little bit smaller in that picture, so I'm guessing that might be a couple

088years back. But a lot of fun art projects happening. And then in the bottom, that was when we had the Minnesota Opera come through and do a program with us for our students. Missing from that is yours truly dressed up as a waterfall. you know, I think I pulled it off. The biggest probably point of pride that continues to come back year and year over and over is our raise craze. And it is a shift for our school to intentionally think about the acts of kindness that they are displaying to our community. to one another, to our teachers, to younger students. And so there are just lots of different ways in which our kiddos go out and then they're celebrated for those acts of kindness. And so they get to earn different things throughout the

089time, more for their acts of kindness than the dollars that we bring in. The dollars are obviously nice to help for things like the mural, but really what speaks truth to our community is that I would say that as a whole, we're much more concerned about and committed to the acts of kindness that are shown by our students than we are by the dollars that are donated to our school. This year, if you were curious, is Finding Nemo Kids. And I believe auditions are coming up fairly soon for that. And then the kiddos will be able to engage in that. If you don't know what our capstone musical is, all of our fourth grade students are able to participate in that. Some of them choose to be on stage and have an acting role in

090it. Some of them choose not to be on stage, but they want to be a part of the choir. One of the things that I'm most proud to see, last year was obviously my first year, but all of our students, meaning our students that are in our RISE program, to our students that are gifted and talented, and all of our students in between get to participate this in an equal way, in an engaged way. And so the musical is just like a true testament to our community and what we believe to be true to ourselves. Also last year we packed two rivers so much that we had to open up the balcony. So we're hoping to do the same thing again this year and get more families interested in coming to check it out. If

091you're looking for something to do this spring, we just want to invite you formally April 24th to our student showcase. This is... Meeting of all of the different pieces of art that our students have worked on throughout a school year And putting it up for display for families to walk through to see if there's a couple pieces of art that kiddos get to work on while they're there but really it's just a celebration of all their hard work that they've done over the school year and Moreland just looks like a ball of confetti exploded on that day with all of the art that our students show off Here are a couple areas of focus for us this year. Obviously, like any of our other elementary schools, we're implementing the READ Act. We've got math instruction

092happening with the support of Moreland has a math specialist, Sam Eisenbron, who works with our grade levels to think about their instruction, their curriculum, their scope and sequence. She's taken that a step further this year and created some content for teachers to engage in during CT time. So it's just been a renewed focus at Moreland. Looking at increasing family engagement. So how are we getting more families into the building? Admittedly our PTA looks a whole heck of a lot like me, albeit maybe folks with more hair. And so looking for ways to bring in our families of color, our families that speak a different language. Thinking about our families that just might not always have access or feel like they have access to our building and how are we drawing them in. And then creating

093new partnerships. So the reason that we put up this lovely picture on the right is that on a whim I reached out to a friend who was a fishing guide and said hey Can you teach our third graders how to fish and over two days our third graders got to go out to Lake Phelan? Put a bobber in the line and start to pull up some fish and so our third graders get to do that again this year That's it for us and Moreland and I learned from last year. That's not it for me because there might be questions So I'll stay up here and see if there are any questions Thank you. You learn quick Are there any questions for principal Sally or for any of our special guests? Morgan Morgan, I have a

094question for your students if I may come back up, please Thank you so much for being here. I noticed that a couple of you talked about books and liking to read, and I'm just wondering, for curiosity, either what's your favorite book or what are you reading right now? My favorite book that I have read was either Guts or Smile, and the book I'm reading right now is Diary of a Wimpy Kid Old School. The book I'm reading right now is Percy Jackson and the Olympians the Lightning Thief and I really like books by Aaron Blabely. The book that I'm reading right now is Harry Potter. I really like Dog Man and I'm reading the third book. I really like Guts or Smile. Wow. Thank you. That was some good representation of some really good books.

095Very nice. Other questions? Very quickly, I heard interest in the science and I heard engineering. And I heard a rumor there's a book in your library now that was the poet Lord of the United States wrote a poem about the spaceship that's going to Europa to look for water. And they crafted a beautifully illustrated book. So if you want a little break and want a little science and math, check it out. Fairly certain Ms. Beatty has put that up in the nonfiction section. All right. Anything else? Go ahead, Chad. Though I want to ask about human football versus roller derby, I'm going to have a more appropriate question, I think. Tell us a little bit. I'm drawing back. I'm not the liaison this year. But your library, I think. Tell me if I'm correct from

096past PTA meetings a while ago now. You sort of have a project I think to update the library. Would you be willing to share like hearing about the love of books and reading and some pretty intense reading that y'all are doing? Just tell us a little bit about the project. Yeah, so as I came in last year, our library is a very lovely space to be in, but the bookshelves were looking a little thin. After doing a little bit of research and just kind of digging into what happened there, a lot of books were sent home just before digital learning days with the thought that kids would be back in two weeks, and so they would bring those books back with them. And those books just unfortunately didn't come back to our shelves at the

097same rate that they left our shelves. And so we felt a pretty strong need that we needed to do something about that. So our now standing librarian slash STEAM teacher is Beatty, along with some support from the librarian over at Somerset. started to craft a list of like books that would be worth purchasing for our students that would reflect what was popular at Somerset, what's showing some popularity at Moreland. We created a list and then went to the school foundation and asked for some dollars and so I think it's either $7,000 or $7,500 from foundation was given to Moreland and so those books are steadily coming in. Usually once a day we're seeing one to three boxes of books. coming in and then our scholastic funds have brought in about another four thousand dollars of

098books over the past year and a half so those are slowly trickling in and then thanks to a group of folks at the district office we're also increasing our library with a thousand dollars worth of books in spanish so i would say before spring break our library will look a little bit different and a lot more full Fantastic. That's exciting. That is exciting. I would love to get one to three boxes of books a day. All right. Any other questions? Thank you so much for coming. Thank you all for coming. You did a wonderful job. Feel free to come back anytime. All right. Thank you. Okay. I've got to turn my page. All right. Our next item is an action item, approval of the school-age care and early learning fee increases. I welcome up Lisa.

099Good evening, board chair and board members and students. I'm Lisa Graython. I have Lori Hume up here, so we'll talk about the early learning fee increase first. So I come to you tonight with approval for the early learning fee increases for 2025-26 and 26-27. This item was discussed with board members on November 18th. There we explained the variety of funding streams that were used to financially support families who want to participate in early learning, preschool programming. Families apply for the funds, which are awarded on a sliding fee scale. And there are income limits to receiving financial support. The chart you are given on the following page details the fees for the families that are not qualifying for financial assistance. These fees are more complicated than just using a one-day rate because holidays, non-school days, and

100other particular program, other particular days that the program doesn't meet. The administration recommending a 3% fee increase over the next two school years. And given the market, we've given market comparisons and program costs of other programs in the area. and like-sized districts. But the details you'll see are on the table on the following page. We did consider the four-way equity test. The fee structure continues to allow for equitable access into early learning classes at no cost or a reduced cost. We access Pathways 1s, Pathway 2 scholarships to provide financial assistance, and Also tuition reduction for students who meet free and reduced qualifications. In addition, school readiness dollars, they provide transportation and tuition support for families who demonstrate a financial need. All of our registration materials are translated and interpreters are provided to support communication through

101the registration process. Individual support for families who are English language learners is also provided to explain programs and preschool options. All right, thank you. So we do have a resolution in front of us. I'd just like to note again that this is not, we've discussed this at previous meetings and had an opportunity to ask a lot of questions. So the resolution is be it resolved by the school board of... School District 197 to approve the proposed early learning fee increases for 25 26 and 26 27 as presented So if I can get a motion in a second we can discuss Tim motion and second by Byron. All right any questions or comments for Lori? We've gotten it out of our system. I think we're ready to vote. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

102Aye. Those opposed, that item passes. Your other motion, Lori's turn? No, Lori's done. This is just my turn. Missy McGinty is not here to join us tonight. She is actually on vacation this week. My second item is approval for the proposed school-age child care fee increases for 25, 26, and 26, 27. This item was also discussed with members at the November 18th meeting. We're recommending a similar 3% increase for each of the two years. The district considered this against the four-way equity test. The administration believes that the fee structure continues to allow for equitable access. We provide care for students with special needs by accessing the special needs school age care. For Disabled Students Levy, we work with special programs to create a really nice, seamless approach that supports our students. We also work to

103meet the Department of Human Resources requirements to allow parents who receive the child care assistance to access our programs. The Minnesota Child Care Assistance Program reimbursement is $14 an hour, $110 daily, and $310 weekly. So you can see we're well below these amounts. I also did check, and there is no wait list in the Dakota County for receiving child care assistance. Our SAC program, however, has had a wait list. In June, and we've been working hard on it, in June the district began working with Radar Talent Solutions to help in recruiting and supporting applicants. And currently we have hired 24 SAC applicants. It's actually 21 since this changed, since we've sent this to the board. So we have a lottery system in place for registration to make it an equitable process for all. Parents have

104a two-week window in which to submit their registrations and then they are drawn out in a lottery basis as far as being able to enter the program for the fall. We also receive a grant on a monthly basis from the Department of Human Resources that allows us in working with the Service Employees International Union, number 284, to give a stipend to our child care employees on a monthly basis to help. increase that wage and fill some of those vacant spots. So you'll see on the following page that 3% increase that we are recommending or asking for with the board tonight and the comparable districts both around our surrounding districts and districts in comparable size. All right, thank you. So we have another resolution in front of us. Be it resolved by the School Board of

105School District 197 to approve the proposed school age care fee increases for 25-26 and 26-27 as presented. If I can get a motion and a second, we can discuss. So Morgan first, John second. Questions or comments for Lori? Go ahead Byron. I did have a question because and I can't find out where there was an exception for non-school days or was that with With early learning I thought because I wrote that down there was an exception for Non-school days that it would be more than the 3% Well, that was inside of the early learning program and it was the extended day. Okay? I knew I And so what was that because it didn't like and it went from 28 25 to 29 25 and then to 30 sure if we go back and get the

106percent or what the early learning for the extended day. Yes. When we began offering a extended day it was well beneath our beneath the costs of the program and we were able to do that to get the program started and so we're increasing it at a rate that's higher than just the 3% to actually cover the costs and make it comparable to other districts. Thank you. Yep. All right other questions? go ahead john it's a comment more than a question but like to point out that right this is not the first time we've heard about this but the work that you all have done to hire additional staff i i think Thank you. And this is hard, right? And costs have been increasing. And I think the other thing I want to say is 3%

107and 3%, talking about both of those programs, like that's a pretty reasonable piece or increase. And I think it's not to say that it doesn't impact some families significantly. That being said, given what inflation has been and given that the staffing shortage has been a serious challenge overall, Just want to express appreciation for limiting the increases to three and three for both of these. Overall, I think that seems like a fairly reasonable thing given just how high the cost is for care for our young children. So thank you. And it re-emphasized the part where he said the hiring that you've done and a whole bunch of people have done to boost the SAC program. I know there's a number of families out there that would love to say thank you because no one likes to

108be on that wait list. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And if anyone wants a job, I'm sure Lisa will still talk to you. Thank you. Thank the board for your support. Any other questions for Lisa on this one? Go ahead, Morgan. I just want to say thank you for addressing the questions that I had at our previous meeting about this, as I was hesitant on both of these and really understanding that these increases go to helping pay our staff and making sure that we have enough qualified staff to provide care and education for our students. So I really appreciate the way that you explained that to help in making these decisions. Thank you. Thank you for your support. All right. Anything else? Otherwise, I am ready to vote. Okay. All those in favor,

109signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? That item passes. Thank you, Lisa. All right. Next item, I will pass it down to Board Member Schwab for the end-of-the-year report on our school board goals. I thought it was, it says Byron. Oh, are we doing the roles and responsibilities? Oh, shoot, it says Byron for both. No, it doesn't, it says Morgan. I can't read. I'm sorry, Morgan, go ahead. That's okay. It's been a long day. All right. Chair Larson, Superintendent Olsen-Skog, and fellow board members, as you're aware, we've spent significant time at multiple meetings discussing the revised school board roles, standards, and expectations document. edits have been made and they reflect state statutes laws our district values and expectations this document is intended to guide current and prospective board members and roles responsibilities and expectations as

110well as inform the community how the board fulfills its role if there are no questions i will turn it back to the chair for vote and discussion Is there a... There is a resolution. There we go. Will you read it for us? Sure. Thank you. Be it resolved by the school board of School District 197 to approve the revisions to the school board roles, standards, and expectation document as presented. Thank you. And before we do a motion and a second, I'd say a big thank you to Morgan for tracking all of our ideas and changes and edits because there was a few and it was a robust conversation. So with that, I'd accept a motion and a second to discuss. So moved. Marcus first? I'll give you a second. All right, Tim on second. All

111right, are there any questions or further discussion about the document that we've talked about many times? All right, I think we're good. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Wonderful. We have an expectations document. Thank you, Morgan. Okay, next agenda item is, let me make sure I read it right. End of your report on the school board goals with... Byron, go ahead. Okay, thank you very much. So in January of 2024, or 2024, yes, the school board defined five goals, agreed upon five goals. This is going to be a report on end of the year of the status of those goals. We did a mid-year update, and this is going to be our... final wrap-up on them. Of the five goals, the first one was to identify resources such as books,

112podcasts, articles that will help the board deepen its knowledge on topics related to the strategic framework or other topics of interest. One of the resources we used for this was a book, Culturally Responsive Teaching in the Brain, and it was a book that also our staff has studied and our administration, I believe. So I would like to report that the book study was completed. It was very successful and well received. And we did not have time to... Find any other resources to go any further on that Our second goal was to engage in regular development sessions to better understand district professional development best practices and board governance and other topics of interest Topic one was supporting our LGBTQ I a plus students families and staff um our second topic was robert's rules and our third

113topic was governance versus management and i would like to report that all three of those topics have been covered the board engaged in completed development sessions in all three of those areas and actually i would say that you know it overlapped because looking at better understand district professional development was our teacher studying the book culturally responsive teaching in the brain also our third goal was to update the planning committee charge statement to explicitly lay out intended collaboration around political advocacy with partner organizations that sounds really quite complicated examples were organizations such as dakota county msba the minnesota school board association AMSD, which is the Association of Metropolitan School Districts, and MASA, the Minnesota Association of Secondary Administrators. What? School administrators. Oh, school administrators. Okay. I didn't see MESPA, the Minnesota Elementary Principals. I'm there. And

114I think we also were including our legislators in that as well. So that was completed and we by we completed it by defining and expanding our political advocacy advocacy partnerships. um in all of those different areas our fourth goal was to create a written document detailing the role and expectations of board members in their school and committee liaison positions and just as we spoke about that document that we have the gun that we have that also was completed with some excellent discussion and and work sessions that we put into that fine-tuning it so with the approval of the board roles standards and expectations document tonight, that was completed. Our fifth goal was to design a 197 t-shirt that helps community members identify board members and feel welcome and encouraged to engage in conversations. I might

115like to report that that also has been completed. Here's an example of it. Does it show up okay? And we did take the, there was a target on the back. Well, it was a logo, but we took it off. Well, we have two t-shirts. We do have. We went above and beyond. So the other one does have a target. This is also completed. And I just like really encourage our community members and staff, whoever they may be, wherever they may be, and we may be, if we're wearing one of these, please come up and say hi. Please introduce yourself and. talk to us. That was one of the reasons we wanted this so that we could be more easily recognized than just like this little badge right here. So with that, we successfully completed our

116goals this year and we will be looking forward to developing new ones for 2025. Thank you. Thank you, Byron. I'm going to turn it right back to you for the summary of the 2024 school board self-evaluation. All right. So. Annually, the school board and superintendent complete a self-evaluation. Board members and the superintendent completed that evaluation by Friday, October 18th, 2024. The results were compiled, shared, and discussed during a board development session on Monday, November 11th, 2024. And I would like to summarize and give highlights from the 2024 school board self-evaluation. in which board members and the superintendent responded and rated themselves in five different competencies on a scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Our first competency was board's performance in developing and maintaining a trusting relationship between the board and the superintendent and individual

117board members and the need for ongoing open and honest communication and collaboration. The board rated themselves 50% strongly agreeing and 50% agreeing. Our second competency, the board's performance in working with the superintendent to formulate district policy, defining mutual expectations of performance with the superintendent and demonstrating good school governance to all district stakeholders. The board rated themselves 75% strongly agree and 25% agree. I apologize, but I feel like I have to read these competencies or it's like to summarize, we maybe miss a little something. The third competency, the board's performance and understanding and the modeling of appropriate value systems, ethics, and moral leadership. The ratings for that were 87.5% strongly agree and 12.5% agree. The fourth competency was the board's performance in developing each board member's understanding of broad educational issues, trends, and best practices. The

118rating for that was 57.14% strongly agree and 28.57% agree. Those percentages came out a little bit different because we only had seven out of eight people respond to that. There was one person that didn't, if you're wondering. general public who have good math backgrounds. The fifth competency, board's performance in thoughtfully planning for the future and regularly making necessary adjustments to ensure continuous progress toward achieving stated goals. Our ratings for that were 87.5% strongly agree and 12.5% agree. Now, with all of that said, major conclusions as areas of strength, putting together all responses to competencies. ISD 197 School Board is a positive, respectful, and collegial board that operates in a productive, effective, and efficient manner to keep learning, innovation, and student success at the center of our responsibilities. By the way, after each of these competencies,

119we could give a written response to a strength to that competency and then also a need for further development and improvement. So, major conclusions as areas of further development or improvement in all competencies. There's a strong desire to have a deeper understanding of the use of data and various educational topics to be more effective, efficient, and empathetic leaders for District 197 and our broader community. we'll be looking at those as guidelines in setting up our goals for the 2025 school year. With that, thank you for the time that all of you put in to responding and giving us some feedback. Thank you very much, board members. Thank you, Byron. Any comments or questions on that before we move on? Because I'd like to, we are an hour ahead of schedule. Good job. Thanks. That is

120my holiday gift to everyone. We are efficient. So the next item on the agenda is a board committee report, and the committee today is PAN, which is the Parent Ambassador Network, and I'm lucky enough to be the representative on PAN. So Parent Ambassador Network brings together representatives serving on their school's PTAs, PTOs, or booster organizations for monthly meetings with the superintendent. These sessions provide a platform to share ideas and advise on district issues. Topics discussed so far this year include PTA, PTO fundraising, transportation, child nutrition, and... Plenty more fostering collaboration and engagement across the district. We were lucky enough to meet this morning Our location was friendly Hills. We meet at every school once and we were had the Distinguished guests of mark Fortman who talked about child nutrition and transportation and of course a

121little bit on the energy and environmental work And there was a robust conversation with plenty of questions and we were very appreciative of the time It's been an honor to serve on PAN and I'm grateful to all the parents that take the time on Monday mornings to meet. So with that, do I have future dates to read? Do I? Great. Is there a calendar to go over? Yep, I'm waiting. I don't know them off the top of my head. Wonderful. All right, so upcoming dates. Two Rivers Winter Concerts. The first one was tonight. We hope that Randy Walls is having a wonderful time at the orchestra concert. And then, again, on the 12th and the 16th, December 10th is 9th grade registration night at Two Rivers, which is also kind of hard to believe. As

122Peter stated earlier, school winter break is from December 20th to January 1st. Come back to school, please, on January 2nd. We have no school from January 20th to the 22nd for MLK Day and end of quarter. And then kindergarten registration night on January 23rd, which is also a little hard to believe. But the wheels keep turning on the school year. With that, I would accept a motion to adjourn. motion to adjourn thank you byron second second by marcus all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye those opposed we're adjourned thank you