001United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> [clears throat] >> Good evening and thank you for coming to the April regular school board meeting of the Becker School Board. Uh we'll start off with >> [clears throat] >> reports. And Charlie, we'll start with you as student reports. Okay. In the past month, the tennis team is off to a hot start with a 4-1 record on the year. The band has been working hard on their new concert music for the Pops concert. DECA has wrapped up for the year, so students are working on miscellaneous projects in the off-season that they will present to judges next year. Softball just got back from the Wisconsin Dells. Bass team is having weekly meetings
002to learn more about fishing techniques. Yearbook has been working on making templates for pages. The boys rugby team has been practicing every Tuesday and Sunday. The boys and girls track teams are coming off to a multiple broken school records and state appearance seasons. With an experienced lineup, the girls are hoping to place high in conference and section meets. So far, they have hosted two indoor meets, winning one and taking second to Cambridge in the other. And the robotics team has been hard at work building a second robot after recognizing the shortfalls after their competition in March. Um at their competition, they won the quality award and had a mentor won the win the Woody Flowers award, which is a huge achievement. In the coming months, student council will be working hard to plan spring fling
003for May. NHS will be attending the state conference this weekend to learn more about what other honor societies are doing. Softball has games in Zimmerman, St. Francis, and Monticello. Bass team is looking to get out on the water right after school gets out, so it'll be a while for them yet. Tennis is in for a 20-plus win season and have a very veteran roster with six seniors who have all played varsity for at least 3 years, looking to make a trip back to state tournament this year. Boys and girls golf will start competing two two meets a week next week. Um yearbook is going to be working on getting spring sport photos, which might be challenging with the weather right now. Drama is working on their spring production, 12 Angry Men. That'll be out the
004first weekend in May. The choir show is coming up on May 18th. The theme is genres. Boys rugby has their first game on the 14th. Track will be competing Wednesday at Chisago Lakes and Thursday at Zimmerman. The boys team has high numbers this year and hopes to be a repeat competitor at two team. So far, they've hosted two indoor meets. Um just with the girls. They'll also be competing in Chisago and Zimmerman this week. Robotics team has their second and last regional this week. It's their home competition in St. Cloud and students will be there Wednesday through Saturday. There are free matches Friday and Saturday. Pop out. Um if you're going to be there, let me know, we'll get you into a free lunch. Um their performance determines whether we will qualify for worlds this
005year. Um today we did have a brief comment and bless our robot. So. That's it. Questions? No. All right. Thank you. Bring us to superintendent report. Sure. Uh MCA testing will continue through May. Uh we're also looking at staffing for next school year, uh including that we're going to meet the needs of our strategic plan. Making sure everyone's licenses are proper and uh we're also completing evaluations of all staff. Not all staff, but ones that are in the rotation this year, all probationary staff. And then uh the formal ones for every third year um continuing contract teachers. And then we have our paras and any other groups being evaluated. Uh as we look at uh the budget, we're looking at around $500,000 in the budget and um we always kind of look at it and
006say, what's the impact on students or how can we best use each budget dollar to achieve our long-term vision for student success. Uh we've listed, I think on the budget sheet, I've got about $2 million to to choose from um to get to that $500,000. Uh so we'll kind of weigh those options out. We're going to look at a variety of different things, including student impact, staff impact, um whether they can be automatic cuts essentially or through attrition or doesn't impact somebody's employment. Uh and then the short-term and long-term impacts of of those are things we'll look at when we go through those and kind of narrow it down and you'll you can see on the agenda this month, we've got uh staffing on there, uh but we don't have any recommendations at this point,
007but hopefully in May we'll have some of those that'll come up. We'll have all of our tier one teachers as well that will be placed on um on uh leave. Yeah. Uh and because we have to do that and then we we post their positions for up to 60 day or at least 60 days and then determine what we do with that after. Uh the class size committee provided helpful uh building level feedback on classroom uh management, student needs, space, safety, and staff support. Uh so there's they provided a recommendation from the staff perspective. Uh when asked, they would not take into account the budget limits, just the um budget cuts potentially. Um those types of things, space and other demands of the district. Uh lower class sizes obviously are desirable by by everyone. Uh
008and so um that adopting these would be difficult uh because of just a number of other factors that come into play. Um the district will continue to prioritize teacher efficacy and student needs as we make decisions, just like I just said with the budget cuts. And then the numbers that they have um provided for recommendations are 20 to 22 students in primary school, um 24 to 26 in the intermediate, the middle school, 26 to 28 students per class, and then the high school uh having some registration caps based on teacher input. Uh and then they had some other areas that they they shared, like music and things like that with a cap at 70. And then increasing the budget for electives and um we'll we'll use these and take these into consideration for sure. Um
009and you know, like I said, everyone would like small class sizes if we could afford it. Um but that gets really difficult at times and space and there's a lot of different factors that come into play. One of them I did like that did come from this committee was the increased budget for electives. So a lot of the electives have we've shifted electives in some cases or we've added electives or uh added staffing for certain electives because we've increased people taking more classes in like the family and consumer science area. Business is another one we've grown in the last few years. And uh their budget has stayed the same even though we've expanded and added staff and added um students to those those programs. So that's something we should we need to look at as
010well. So legislative update, so they did they were not in session last week. The uh Senate had the omnibus education bill week and a half ago on the 27th, I believe, of February. It was when they ended um their before taking a recess. Uh they had some bills on there on student device restrictions. Uh like screen time restrictions and things like that, which which we're starting to look at as well. Read Act revisions, bullying interventions, uh the tier two licensure expansion. Interstate teacher mobility, so making it a little easier for out-of-state teachers to to get their license in Minnesota, which is somewhat difficult now because uh or it's always been difficult because Minnesota has much higher guidelines, I guess, on on how they bring in teachers and accept teacher licenses from out of state, so
011that would be nice. CPR AED training for all coaches, uh middle school and above, which is a sounds great. In in terms like it is, but that would mean you'd have to train everybody and it's pretty expensive to train people on CPR and uh things like that for all coaches. That like it'd be nice to have one coach maybe trained in each on each team and things like that, but it's you start throwing in you know, 30 or 40 coaches per season per sport, in some cases, it gets to be a lot. Uh crisis planning with students disabilities, uh student board representation, they're trying to make that mandatory. Um so that one is fine cuz we already have it. Um certain K-3 dismissals. So right now, you can't uh suspend essentially or dismiss students from
012school K-3. Uh they would allow up to a day and a half of that. It it the one bill I saw. Uh opiate opiate antagonist possession, diplomas for Korean and Vietnam War veterans, automatic diplomas if you were um went to war for Korea, Korean War, Vietnam War. Um and you were 17, 18 a junior, senior in high school and um you could get your a free diploma from that. 40 years late. >> Yeah. Yes. That's what I said, they should have given it when they did. Uh House policy did not have an omnibus bill. Um there's some stuff going on with with that, but they're they were still working at that time uh from the information, so um that's where it sits. House finance, uh some PSEO changes and and things like that were heard.
013CTE base scholarships, career pathways, and student mental health grants. Uh those types of things were in the House finance, but again, no formal bill was drafted. It all kind of sat in the committee, so everything was heard in the committees and more details are to come for that. The uh House passed did pass the K-12 forecast adjustment bill to align appropriations with the February 2026 forecast, which was better than the previous forecast to the November forecast. Um and then there's this thing out there called uh providing tax credits for SGOs or scholarship granting organizations. Um that proposal failed on a tie vote. Um and there's a lot of still unknowns, I think, about that. Uh I've been asked a number of questions from our representatives and senators on that and so I just don't know
014some of the unknowns. It sounds great to have a $1,700 tax credit for everybody. But we just don't know how that really works out in the end. So that's what I'm going to like a party line vote. So Senate Education Finance Committee also discussed anonymous reporting systems, which we have that in place already. Utility costs, allowing those in operating capital, pool levy eligibility and literacy aid formula changes and they didn't they didn't have any final actions. And then graduation will take place on May 29th. So let Angel or or me know if you are planning to attend or not. Any questions on all of that? When's the end of the session? May 18th. A month. A week. I think it was nice to hear too that we are kind of ahead of the curve on
015a lot of these things that you know that they're talking about. So The good ones in my mind. Right. So [laughter] There and there are some other Becker related bills that are out there as well. The talking about the data centers and the power plant and I think the bill got heard on um LPI my or maybe it's getting heard this week. I'm trying to figure out ways to get them steam power or steam generation that they need to run recycling at LPI and stuff. So um Yeah, the mayor was actually there on the 26th of March and Jacob Sanders from the city was there as well testifying. So I jumped back and forth between two different the education committee and then their committee. Was there energy and Yeah, it was just funny bumping into
016them there. All right. Thank you, Jeremy. Item number three can item two C committee reports. Corey, you have a track? Sure. Report. Track committee met on Monday, March 16th. Just kind of the continuing the plan is to continue to raise community involvements. There was a letter created by Mr. Mark Kobliner that was shared then by our chief of police actually at the Becker Chamber meeting that month of March to the Crystal Ball. So that was really good. Again, they're looking for businesses that would be willing to be Track certified. And just being basically committed to fostering a positive mental It was presented like I said in March from what I've gathered from people that were at that meeting that went really well, well received. It's just now making sure that we can go and get
017these businesses on Track and all that would all work with them. If you're a business and you're looking to participate, if you have questions, you can obviously reach out to our middle school principal Chantel Boyum who leads it. Um Mark Kobliner or you can email myself and we can kind of get you. I do have a letter that was shared with the chamber or with the businesses of the chamber. If you would if you had any interest in looking at that, I can let's leave it there. You can again pass it around as it goes through, but that was kind of given out at the meeting as well. All right. Any questions about Track? All right. Thank you, Corey. And Pete, I believe you have activities, policy and ECFE maybe. Yeah. All right. You got
018show. Tonight. Uh I'll start off with the early childhood. We met here on March 30th. Um and off the bat, I think Michelle and her staff has done a phenomenal job this year. Of course, Jen with community ed works really closely with them and as far as the programs and the online registration and the and the the steps they've taken definitely deserve um some good praise for that. Some enrollment updates. ECFE the fall fall classes had 59 five classes. Winter was 74 enrollees with seven classes. And spring had 80 participants with seven classes, which is a 35% increase since the start of the year. Um pre-K fall was a 142. Winter had 138 and spring had 140. So one actually a 1% decrease um since the start of the year for that age group. And
019then small wonders had 52 in the winter, 58 in the spring. Um and well, 52 in the fall, 58 in the winter and 60 in the spring and there was a 15% increase um since the start of the year. So program wide over 54% increase since the start of the year on the programs. Um couple family events coming up. They've got dad's pizza night over at the Pizza Depot on the on April 13th. Grandparents night at the ECFE building on May 13th. And they're looking for new you know event ideas for the coming year in 2026-2027. So couple ideas, bingo, garage sale, carnival night, dance party. Um you know, if you give those that team some ideas, they find amazing ways to put things together. A couple summer events they have coming up. The NCLI
020the grant update. The No Child Left Inside. They they did a presentation on that. Um they were supposed to hear by the 31st if we uh darn it. I was not maybe I have some good news. >> hear that we Okay. We did put in to get that to get a grant on that. And apparently Jeremy the bearer of bad news over here. We didn't get the grant, but we'll we'll keep working on it. Um they've got camping out at the park in June, farm, science. A lot of good things. We've got an open house for pre-K and small wonders February 26th. Um But they had one and the open houses it was a really good turnout. Lots of new families and they all brought good questions. Um they said to the event, which is
021good. Registration is now open through Let's see. Yeah, registration is now open. That. See what else can I tell you? They always give me plenty of content to talk about. They are working on a parents handbook. That they can put in ECFE. They're going to be putting surveys together as well. You know, send out through the system just to kind of grab community input how to best meet the needs of participants. And uh For an update on the imaginary city, they are still working on moving that needle forward somehow, some way. So I've heard rumors that it wasn't going to happen, but as far as I know, Paige and Jen and Kelsey and Dale I think are still working on how that's going to transpire. So Great year over there. Any questions on that? I
022was just going to the one about just the growth, right? Any historical or any is it consistent or Like numbers in those programs. When I know it increased from the fall to spring and it was every number. What is that like? Are we typically sitting at like 60 in that first group? Are we Is that a high number or I think over the years they've restructured Yeah. more classes so we can get more students in. So I think it's kind of hard to measure, but I guess we could take an overall student count and see where we are. This is kind of nice to know. Okay. It gives a good projection maybe for kindergarten classes. Are we growing? Are we Yeah. Well, and it's it's to to his point too, they're you know, they are
023restructuring all the time. So they're looking at you know, do they bring you know, all day options, two day to three day options. But that's one thing that we've always you know, always asked is you know, going into this new scenarios, how can we you know, how can we put stats to it, right? So um But yeah, I think the the numbers are our best option right now with that. So All right. I'll just move into uh activity. Again, the the main thing we met on was again the activities fees. I think Dave now has enough you know, of a target to hit to to where we want to get with the next two years in fees. We don't want to be too low to the point where it's you know, it was not going
024to be enough and we're stuck with the same number for the next two years. At the same time, we just don't want to increase it with no real you know, verification or you know, hey, we're going to put it up here. So um It's been a challenge to get you know, to get him you know, the information needed to zero in on where it should be. But we do have the numbers from the other conferences. So I I think I think we should be able to make a responsible decision on where activity fees should be. And we're at the bottom right now. Things with transportation costs and and all that. It's an easy you know, you know, it's an easy question to answer. You know, why do we have to do it? You know, the
025the answers are pretty obvious in that case. So We continue to do that. I'm thinking we will probably have something on online in front of us to to vote on here in the next month or so. Um and then just to touch base on you know, the budget cuts. You know, it's pretty much all over the place, right? Um so they continue to look at ways they can be more efficient whether it be the transportation or the planning and scheduling. We talked about uh you know, the hotel costs. We're going to state, you know, it's great with Becker, you know, we're always going down to state stuff, but it it is expensive to send the kids down to to stay in the hotels down there. So, um that is is there looking at ways to
026curb that cost as well. Good. I'll re-read the question again, but so you said Yeah, re-read the question again. We are the at the bottom end of where we're at both of middle school and junior >> Mississippi at. Questions. Yep. Are we looking to maybe go like middle of the pack or just a little bit of an increase? I mean, I you know, give away, but >> Well, that's been the challenging part is like, what's the target? That's been my question is like, is there a number that we actually are looking to get and how can we get there? Um again, at the end of the day, uh we've got to do something, you know, with we've got the trainer now, so that's an added expense, but um yeah, I think we're That's when we
027decided before cuz it was I think 8 years like Kevin before we raised the It was an 8-year time, so when we talked about it last time and said, well, we can't wait another 8 years, so we decided every 2 years we got to make a decision and and uh so we're coming up on I'm ready to do that again. So, again, I you know, middle of the pack, but at the same time we're going to make sure that, you know, our needs are all the needs of the kids are being covered and It's nice to be able to cuz you like hopefully at higher participation, right? Keep it right. Yeah. And then that you got to get in there and sustain it cuz it's really expensive. There are schools that, you know, you know,
028charge more for different activities and things like that. We kicked that idea around. I don't I don't think I'm a huge fan of that. Uh I like kind of keeping everything um on that uh but uh yeah. Oh, yeah, they were talking about uh they were talking about gate revenues last time too of where the money comes from, but uh I think with the numbers that we have up there, I think we can make a reasonable increase still still have it be, you know, responsible, but so And then uh policies, um I think uh I'll defer to Jeremy when we talk about it later on in the meeting. All right. Thank you, Pete. Any other committee reports? All right. Moves us on to item number three, consent agenda. I'll make a motion to accept the
029agenda in front of us. I will second. We have a motion and a second to accept the consent agenda as written before us. Any further questions or discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. All opposed? Motion carries. Brings us to item number four, resolution donations. I'll make a motion to accept the donations. I'll second that. We have a motion and a second to accept donations. Any discussions or questions about that? Obviously, the weight room needs to continue to be updated, but a what a lot of the money's going to There's like $4,000 going to new gym equipment or Yeah, I don't know. But I see Alliance came through again. Yep. Another $8,000 from Lions programs. Except for I don't know what the Clear Lake one is. I Is that for the
030Is it for that trainer? The weight room is for the trainer. Oh, apparently. But then there was also the four for Uh Four for the CTE. That's what I thought you were talking about. Okay. That's all one. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, the Clear Lake ones must have That might be, but that What's that program called? The weight program? What it is called ETS. ETS. I wonder if that's what that's for. All right. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All opposed? Motion carries. Brings us to item number five, the review of updated policies. Jeremy, you want to speak to these? I assumed Pete would, but uh That's enough for me. >> Those first three, 410, 615, and 701 are are non uh substantial changes, uh so we can approve those in one meeting.
031The 410 is deleted some references to Minnesota parenting laws uh due to the new laws on paid leave and ESST, so that was just removed updated to correspond to the law. 615 uh aligns it with the uh transition to alternate MCA requirements. So, again, it we could say we disagree, but it's in law, so uh and then 701 for the budget was a revision and recommendation to article three A and B, which was recommended by the auditors and MSBA staff, and then a revision in article three C uh for Minnesota statute alignment 123B.77. So, again, that's those three are >> [snorts] >> pretty uh These are easy ones. Yeah. Just to review. Can't remember, do we vote on them? Yep. So, we'll take a vote. Looking for a motion. I'll make a motion to accept
032the updated policies in front of us. I'll second that. We have an update and a second. Any further questions or discussions? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. All opposed? Motion carries. And then that brings us to item number six, first readings. So, uh 503, 515, and 625 actually start at the bottom one, the 625. Uh use of AI. That is a brand new policy. Obviously, AI is a newer thing in schools, and so this was a recommendation from MSBA. There's a number of items that we put in there as well that they fill in They give us these essential spots for notes and give us some recommendations, but we can fill them in accordingly. One of the probably the bigger things is you have to have a committee uh according to
033how we have the policy written and how MSBA has the policy written, and we would like to use the district uh curriculum advisory committee for for that committee because already there. I don't know if we'd get a ton of people on a committee just for artificial intelligence implementation, but um the running joke is just use AI for the committee and go from there, >> [laughter] >> but uh it's using the district curriculum advisory committee for that, so you'll have some discussions about that if you're on that committee. Uh and again, that's a first reading because it is a brand new policy that we don't have. Uh 515, uh protection and privacy of people records. Um that one has some updated information on immuniz- immunization records information, um and then some guidance from Minnesota Health and
034Human Services, uh and then there's a there's a decent amount of changes in this one, and so you'll see that, and so that's why we decided to do a uh first reading on it to get some feedback on that as well. And 503, student attendance, has a lot of numbers, so this has gone through admin review, so the assistant principals mainly spent a lot of time getting the numbers and things in place for this, so you'll see like after so many absences, this will happen. After the next set of absences per trimester, this event will happen. Um up to and including uh grade changes and and things like that that are relative to that, so those those are in there. Again, some pretty decent changes and a lot of new information in there uh that
035you can see, and then it also um Minnesota statute changed um the definition of habitual truant in there under um article three, and so you'll see that that information in there, but just anyone has feedback can give these give that to me or give them to the district office, and we can uh we'll take that into consideration, and we'll uh bring it to policy committee and bring it here if we need to. All right. Any further questions on those policies? All right. Brings us to item number seven, this meeting is adjourned. Just in time to get home. Some of us will be going home