Board Meeting 7.8.25

001withations. Yeah, I'll go ahead and introduce that. So, um, we've done this I think we've done it every year I've been here. So, this will be the sixth time we've we've done this where we recap different pieces of the district through the the cabinet members and the principles and and things from the different school districts and stuff. And so, I'm going to Can you switch me Shane up on the You can you can throw me up on the screen. No. Uh, as we go through it, we we tie everything to the district goals, the strategic plan that we created a few years ago. And, uh, as I go through it, I just going to want to share our strategic plan belief statements that we believe that everyone is unique, has worth, deserves respect, and can

002learn and excel in an environment tailored to their needs. We believe that it is the responsibility of every school to provide a respectful, physically, and emotionally safe and secure learning environment for everyone. We believe that critical thinking and problem solving skills are fundamental to preparing students for their future. We believe in the potential of all students to succeed in an everchanging world. And we believe in the value and importance of student involvement and activities to create well-rounded citizens. And so we we again created those if I don't know if even those of you that weren't on the board at the time, we created those with the members of the board. We created them with with people from throughout our community, uh staff members, students. uh we had a variety of different stakeholders. We also created

003a our strategic uh plan mission statement and this is a little different than it was prior to that. uh where I think developing is a new word it was creating or I don't know what the word was but uh our mission statement of developing self-directed learners to thrive in a changing global community came from that and then the five focus areas as well and as people are presenting you'll be able to see in the top leftand corner different corners I guess they are uh which focus area they're kind of focusing on as they're presenting and which which one of these it's it's tied to and which goal area as Uh and the I guess the first person that'll be presenting will be uh Carla Nolan who's our director of curriculum and instruction. I also have

004on on our our uh presentation here. I have the all the goals that we have goal one, two, three, four, five on here and then the the objectives with those as well. But those are on our strategic plan. And uh we'll go ahead and get right into Carla. Uh Carla gets the fun job. You might have to turn it on, but Carla gets a fun job of presenting every year along with Kevin also gets to present every year. And then the rest get to kind of rotate through. So you don't hear from somebody this year. You'll likely hear from them them next year, their department at least next year. All right. Well, good evening. Uh I am going to share your curriculum instruction and technology tonight. Um we'll start with what used to be world's

005best workforce that is now um the acronym uh that stands for comprehensive achievement and civic readiness. Uh same goal areas however one um additional um that talks about uh preparing all learners to be lifelong learners. Uh so I'll share the four goal areas and progress toward those that I can tonight because MCAs are connected to some of them and we don't have those results until the fall. So I'll share that in the fall. Uh but we do have um our ready school readiness which focuses on our early uh education learners and our first goal for this year was to have 80% of those students ready for kindergarten um measured by uh some early reading assessments and we are currently at the 75% mark. So that's a good thing. This year we had all of our

006early educators um responsible for teaching reading trained in the early childhood letters training. So they are done with their training but now next year we uh start with implementation uh for as for reading and the K12 grades. This is the read act require requirement. Um world's best workforce had just grade three reading requirement and now we are K12 and so this one is a multi-year goal and so we are ending this in 2026. By 2026 we would like to have 70% of our students reading at grade level. We are currently in progress at 63.3% of our K12 students. Um so that we're focusing mainly on our ear early um elementary students K5. We uh implemented a new literacy program in K5 this year and our teachers are well on their way to finishing their letters

007training um by next November. Uh in terms of graduation rate, this is the one that we don't get that rate until about February or March. And so uh for 2024 we um met our goal um at 92.6% we shoot for maintaining a 90% graduation rate. Uh and finally this is the new goal we are centering around um focusing on our our students um regulating their emotions and communicating effectively and we measure that by our social ac academic and emotional behavior screener sabers and my sabers. Um and that goal is to be at 90% of low risk and we are currently at 87. In terms of curriculum review and adoption, uh this year we implemented like I said K5 literacy um program and also K5 health. Our curriculum review was for 6 through 12 ELA uh

008English language arts and we finished that and are looking forward to implementing next fall. Uh next year's curriculum review will focus on K12 social studies. Uh finally instructional technology. This year in secondary we focused on instruction or a professional development on um artificial intelligence for all licensed staff. Uh next year we will deepen that understanding through more professional developments to use AI as a tool in our instruction. Um we had initial implementation of curricular resources for literacy this year and and in this day and age there are lots of digital and print and so with our new um tech integrationist support we will be strengthening that digital component of implementing those curricular resources. In secondary we also had some site visits. We took some teachers to visit sites that are implementing the modern classrooms project

009model of instruction and we have one um high school math teacher that is currently uh implementing with a handful of others kind of following suit for next year. Uh that will also be supported by our secondary tech integrationist support starting next year. I will hand it over to our elementary assistant principal Brandon Cavendoose. All right. Hello. So, I'm going to talk about the primary and intermediate. Do I need this? Probably not. Yeah, you need it for people online. All right. Do you want to turn it down or what? Just keep further away. There we go. So, um for the primary school, I'm going to talk about two slides. Um some a couple things we're super proud of. Um we did responsive classroom. We kind of started the put the buck in the teachers year in

010August of this last summer and then we had um three days of training June 9th, 10th and 11th just couple about a month ago now. Um I will say responsive classroom as a as a I went through it twice. Uh responsive classroom one and two when I was a teacher changed the way I taught, changed the way I thought. Um to me it's like assume they know nothing but teach them everything. Um super great training. And um I actually had a video, but the teachers thought it was kind of embarrassing to show because you're doing some silly things because it's elementary and you're dancing and you're doing and Dale said no because it was a video of Dale putting a crown on his head and dancing. So Dale Christensen said no. So so if he's

011watching he's probably going to be mad that I mentioned that. Um so I'm really excited for the responsive classroom to be implemented this this fall. Um I would say 95 to 96% of our classroom teachers were there. um which is fantastic. I think especially for the first week of summer when school got out. Um and then with the letters training and the responsive classroom, I'm really excited to see what we can do um this coming year. The other thing I would like to talk about, something I'm super proud of as I kind of spearheaded this is the watchdog program. Um this program um was started I believe right like right around the COVID time and then when COVID hit obviously you couldn't have people coming into the school. Um so with uh the help of

012the community which um links right with the goal we had $11,000 of gifts given to us for the watchdog program. Um we got um so this means any it's kind of geared towards male role models coming into the school. However um we do have moms coming in too. Um it's um the acronym for moms is moms with marble students and the dogs as dads of great students. Um but we started it in January. We had pizza night December 12th. I think we had like 150 dads and kids come in boatload of pizza. Talked about the program, what it means. And then through our generous gifts, um, obviously we have to have background checks. And then each, you can kind of see the picture. Um, each dad gets a watchdog t-shirt and they're about $25 a

013piece plus a background check. It' be like $35, $40 per parent, but we're covering that cost with the gifts that we got from the Lions Clubs, and both Becker and Clearwater and Liberty Paper also donated. Um, so we're covering that probably for the next two or three years because we did get so much money. Um, and as you can see, we started our first dad, our dog, first dog came in June or J January 14th. We had 85 dogs come in between June January 14th and June 4th. I think there was only like 97 days of school in that time period. Right around like 100 days of school in that time period. So, we had one or two dads almost every day. Um, so super cool program. Um, and then what we did, you can

014see we have a wall of fame. came. We hung that up right when you walk into the primary school. Took a picture with their um and the kids also get a shirt, too. I should mention that the kids get that's like my hero. My dad or my dog is a hero. So, they get a picture with their dad or their mom and then we hang them up in the wall of fame. So, as soon as you walk into the primary school, that's one of the first things you see. Um and Dale and I kind of talked. We're going to actually frame it like a jersey, our goal is. And then we'll have each and then the dad's also sign dads and mom sign the shirt. So, we're going to hopefully have like a a watchdog

015hall of fame and frame each t-shirt. So, each year you can see um and then that doesn't even count the 85. That doesn't count the dads who came in more than once. That's 85 different people. We had dads come in three or four times. Um so, super great, super cool program. They also don't they don't get a free shirt every time. They have they get to keep the shirt. They got to wear the shirt. Um so, super proud of this program. And then next year, I'd like to do um get moms more involved. So, I like to have muffins with mom because we had pizza. And then each year we'll redo a pizza night for the kindergarten parents, but every the first and second grade parents won't need it because they've already been introduced to

016it. So, that's something we're super proud of. And then at the intermediate school, um, link it to our goal three, we wanted to reduce our behavior referrals by 7% because that eliminates some of the barriers that we have in our education system, right? We can get those behaviors down. We actually got it down to nine. We reduced it by 9%. right around that 9%. And a lot of that comes we this is our second or it was our second year of PBIS implementation. We did a survey and 90% of our staff that's custodians, cooks, teachers, paras were invested in buying in and I think that helped hugely by eliminating some of those behavior problems and also the engagement strategy we've been working with as a district to help keep students engaged and keep them entertained.

017Pretty much what we're doing, right? We're entertaining those kids. Um, I think those two things combined will continually reduce our behaviors as long as we continue to have that teacher buyin and students expectations hold them accountable. And I think we're doing a very good job of that at the intermediate school. Um, and I'm looking forward to this coming year. I'll turn it over to high school principal Dave. Well, thank you for the opportunity to uh present tonight and thanks for the opportunity to tie a tie in the summer. Uh it's been a month. I got on my second try tonight. So, all right. Uh I'm going to focus on three slides. Uh the first of which is really focused on our professional development. So, we had two shared days with the middle school. Uh using

018this space for for most of it. And uh on those two days it was it was split in half with half being our work on priority standards. So, uh, Carla Chantel and myself went to some training the year before on how to identify priority standards and and lead the staff through the process. And it was really, uh, timely because we have new standards uh, that we will be using this year in English, new standards coming up, uh, social studies very soon, and then math uh, on the horizon. And just the the way that the standards are written are much different, and some of the content in the standards are are much different. And so identifying the priority standards, what things are the most important. That work started this year, will continue into PLC work this

019year for both the middle school uh and the high school and then the elementary uh kind of one year behind because they had letters training last year. Second piece of our uh full day PD training was artificial intelligence as Carla mentioned and bringing in a speaker from the outside William Guby who has uh really found a niche for himself that uh he's presenting uh everywhere and and anywhere on artificial intelligence. And what was really nice about William uh is he gives a lot of pretty easy on-ramps uh for utilizing it in the classroom. So for efficiencies, for some retests, for some different lesson uh ideas, for some engagement strategies. So he came in for for two half days, one in the fall and then one in the spring. And uh Patrick uh worked with the

020staff on on some of the uh ways that we can continue to use artificial intelligence and Shane and I have had some conversations on how we can continue that uh this year. Second piece uh continuing with uh as I mentioned you know the priority standards will continue in PLC's uh this coming year. Uh middle school continued to focus on effective classroom management strategies while deepening their use of educ data and better uh support student needs. At the high school level, uh we spent uh time on quality assessments and looking at our data both from Skyward and Eddie Climber on uh within each class where our students performing the the poorest. So what data is what is the data showing us and what uh summit of assessment do we need to enhance and and what's what's

021the struggle behind that summit of assessment? Summit of assessment could be a project, could be a test, could be a lab report. uh so using the data systems that we have to target what we need to focus on and then providing professional development on how we can create better assessments. Also at the high school level over the last couple years we've focused on uh students failing classes and and how we uh support those students. Uh in some areas like our industrial tech area, we don't have many students fail those those courses. So we wanted something that everyone could attach to. So this year uh high school staff targeted a group that they wanted to improve. It might be I want to reduce the the percentage of students uh at the C level. So increasing the

022B level not moving them down. But that that gave everyone really a chance to look at their data and to come up with strategies to uh improve that level. So we just called that our grade band data. And the final piece uh with safety and well-being uh middle school uh you heard a presentation uh last year this year on dig uh discover inquiry grow inquire grow uh so this year they they improved that program and adjusted some of their course offerings the times that it's offered uh the the duration that those dig classes are offered. uh middle school administration presented at our summer conference to uh two very full rooms on on how they did this. So, just to meet students where they're at and have uh staff members teach in some areas that they're

023really excited about uh high school, we continue to uh refine our registration process. So, when students sign up for the classes, they're truly informed on on the classes that they are taking and they are choosing uh their path. that's not choosing a class because uh this is what their buddy is taking or this is what their brother or sister took. With those options, uh we rolled out a number of new courses and you can see the list uh up there, but the the one that was probably the most successful uh and most exciting for students and and the staff member was unified. uh we offered it every every trimester and our our teacher Alyssa Stevens had done a lot of homework and she was really excited to do that with our DCD students and then

024different general ed students uh in that class every trimester. So the other ones were were very popular as well and just maximizing the interest of our staff and the interest of our staff to offer those course courses. is we had to have the interest of the students. And then something that we didn't anticipate uh as the year began, our our high school staff wanted to move to everyday advisory to better support our students. And the feedback from the staff at the end of the year was 80% wanted to utilize everyday advisory next year. And when you get 80% of staff to to support something, that's a pretty resounding uh yes. So uh we're talking about that today on how we can maximize our advisory time next year. Thank you. And then next up is director

025of food service. Thanks for the opportunity to present. We have a lot going on in the food service department. Um some big department level changes. So I'm excited to share that with you all. Uh so the first goal beginning to transition away from using essential kitchen to site level cooking. So currently our high school kitchen operates as our central kitchen. our assistants and our lead cooks, they start their day at the high school and they're prepping the main entre, cold salads, certain fruits, certain vegetables. So, they're all starting their day here and then middle of the day they disperse to their sites and that's where they're doing the cooking and the finishing of foods. So, we um have had a positive fund balance now for a few years and we're able to look at how

026we can change and improve our department and I'll talk through um how we're going to transition to site level cooking. So, new equipment. First of all, the big things, walk-in freezers at the intermediate school and middle school. We've added them. They're operational. They look beautiful. Just waiting on some shelving. So, that is finished and checked off the list. Um, we've had some hood upgrades at the intermediate and the middle school, too, to house some in to some equipment underneath those. Um, like this state-of-the-art kettle. It's called an Ivario. Basically, our cooks don't need to lean into 40-year-old kettles to, you know, deal with the pasta and the chili. They're just ergonomic. Basically, a computer that helps them cook faster and be more efficient. Um, and then small words. Some of the sites don't even have

027certain chef's knives um because again, we've been doing most of the cooking here at the high school. So, then that will change um next year and allow the cooks then to start their day at their designated site. So, every site will have an assistant and a lead cook there throughout the whole day. They'll be involved with breakfast, which they have not been before, so we can do more hot entree choices, hopefully more scratch cooking at breakfast. So, positive improvements there to bounce back on the equipment a little bit. Um, between fiscal year 25 and 27, looking at about $530,000 from the food service budget on on those. Um, we have a small $12,500 equipment grant from the department of egg 2, which helps a little bit. touched on to the lead and assistants starting at

028their respective kitchens and then this change has just allowed us to look at the big picture too of our department and reorganizing and being more efficient with our other staff as well and tweaking things as needed. Other benefits, the big one is less transport of food. Currently, I'll use Cisco. They're our prime vendor as the example. They come to our high school with a big delivery two times a week. They go to a big back freezer and then we transport that food to the front freezer at the high school. Then the cooks are panning this up for days. They're putting it in transport carts. It's going on the truck to be delivered to sites where it might not even be used for a whole another day. So this transition to the site level cooking, they

029can get the food delivered right to their site. They can pan it up the day of. Um less physical labor hopefully on the staff as well. Instead of lifting 12 cases of hamburgers, they'll lift two for their site. Um they won't be spending their whole morning panning up these hamburger patties. they'll spend 45 minutes and then they'll switch to cutting grapes, you know, where before they were doing such repetition um and that was being heard from them. Um the physical aspect. So that will be an improvement as well. Um less repetition, greater flexibility in menu planning. Um if we need to change a recipe that benefits the primary versus the high school, they like something different. Um we can do that easier as well. Uh and less wasted time, no traveling to other sites. um

030where you can focus on your site alone. You're not organizing orders for other sites, helping them with their production records. So, it'll just be a really good um teamwork for each of the sites to kind of be cohesive together. So, I'm really looking forward to that. The picture on the left is the intermediate school kitchen. That was from back in May, so it's incomplete here, but you can see it's got two doors. So, the the door that's further away actually is cafeteria facing. they can get the food delivered without even having to walk through the kitchen, which is awesome. And then the other two pictures are those those new kettles that we're putting in at each of the sites as well. Um I didn't touch on the primary school is going to be in a

031transition year. They're not going to have a walk-in freezer yet, but they'll have extra reach and freezers. So, we're hoping they can get by just like the other sites. Um and then next summer we can add a a walk-in freezer and um some new equipment under their hood. but the high school will continue to support them if they have any um needs that they can't complete with what they currently have. And the second goal is implementing a food recycling program. So in May of 24, we had Sherburn County out to conduct a waste characterization study. We had them come to the primary school. They found 32% of the generated waste was food waste. Um majority of that is what's on a student's tray. It's not actually what's being generated from behind the scenes in the

032kitchen. um but what's being dumped out from the student tray. So, we have some work to do there, but in the meantime, we're looking at we added a uh food recycling program with a $10,000 grant from Sherburn County to help us get started. Um we added a pig recycling program, pig food pig buckets. Um so, anyways, we have a pig farmer that drops off buckets where then we put our food waste into. Um, and we train the kids from camp opportunity, the little ones, the second grade. We started at the primary school where they come to a station after breakfast and lunch and they sort their trash from their food waste. Um, and they of course are excited to feed the pigs. So, they don't want to it's important because they don't want to contaminate,

033you know, the the food bucket. So, if someone drops a ranch cup into the the pig buckets, you know, they're all hands are raised like come over here. So, which is good because we don't want to contaminate um what's going to the pigs. So that's been um a good implementation there and we actually reduced the amount of um dumpster pickups there. So that was a clear offset or an improvement. Uh in January of this year, we then added it to the intermediate school and training took about 1/8 of the time. They caught on really quickly. So that went smooth. Hoping the same thing goes uh smooth at the middle school because we plan to start there in September as well. The grant money covered all of the food waste fees for the first year. Um,

034so we're going to see how this year shakes down. I think it'll be about a wash based on the decreased need for the dumpster pickups. So, we're going to see how numbers play out. I might be able to get a little bit more grant money. Um, but to be determined a little bit there. And the benefits, the children are doing hands-on recycling daily. It it opens conversations about, you know, take what you're going to eat. We don't want we don't want to be feeding the pig buckets. you know that's there as a safety net but just having those conversations and then the food waste itself it stays local the the three pig farms are located in Icanti county I believe and it's been a positive teamwork initiative between food service paras lunchroom supervisors custodial and

035the students themselves just that open communication and how are things going so I think that's been another positive program there's a picture so the one on the left again this is the station that station can house you know, four students can be there at a time. Drop their silverware in the middle. Um, and then I I teach them, you know, do all your trash first and then what's left on your tray should be the food and then that goes into the green bucket. And then the those that pick it up actually cook the food again right on the truck. Um, so it's safe for the pigs to eat and then feed it to the pigs. And that is all that I have. Thank you. We do a giant staff bacon party. Say that again. We

036do a giant staff bacon. No. Uh, next is uh director of transportation Kim Spowden. And Kim, this is kind of to talk about Kim. I don't know if all of you know who she is, but u just started in a little over two months ago. Two months ago. So there you go. So we got some newbies coming up now. So time to ask some questions. Thank you very much for having us tonight. Um, so I'm just going to go over a couple of things. Um luckily I did come from within the the department so I did have some things that I could put out here today. Um the first one is uh we want to provide the district with the safest and most professional transportation as possible. Providing more latitude to the district and students.

037So giving them more opportunities. We want to expand um we don't want any of the kids held back because we can't transport something or somewhere. Um we want to expand what we can do. Um so work on more and different types of training for the drivers and paras encouraging participation in the bus rodeo um to work on improving driving skills and knowledge. Um this year is the first year for the bus rodeo um back in Minnesota. It has been gone for several years. So that is starting back up um with an opportunity to win a chance to go to nationals in Texas next June. So, um we're pro promoting that um for the drivers to hone in their skills and uh get better. So, uh we also want to work more closely with administration, teachers,

038coaches, and accommodate as much as we possibly can to grow not only in sports but in academics and the arts as well. Um, so we want to make sure that we're well-rounded, you know, giving opportunities to not only football, baseball, that kind of stuff, but also one act play. Um, any of the arts, uh, they have a couple different things throughout the state for them to be able to go and show their art as well. So, we don't want to forget anyone. We want to make sure that we're available for them. Um, and part of this will be doing annual inval evaluations of procedures and protocols related to safety of student staff and the community within the Becker School District. Um, our second goal here is um we always strive um for zero failed inspections.

039Um, this year we only had one fail last year out of 48 vehicles in 2024, which is significantly better than 2023, which had 13 fails out of 49. Um, in 2023, the state switched to new inspection protocols. Um, it wasn't wide known on what those protocols were, so um, our mechanics and staff were just kind of guessing at what we were supposed to do. There were significant changes. It was no longer a point system. it was a straight up pass or fail. So, there was a lot of learning on that. Um, but for uh Dean and Dave, they're always striving for that zero um to be where we want to be. We want to be the best out there. So, um we're spraying the underside of the buses with rust proofing. This will help prevent

040the rusting. Um we did select a few last year and it worked really well. Um so, we are continuing with that. Um, we're keeping the mechanics off of routes as much as possible to have them in the shop rotating the fleet in and out of the shop to have eyes on them more often and keeping the mechanics up to date on changes in inspection laws through training with the straighten state patrol inspectors and train the trainer. So, um, Dean just went and renewed his DOT inspection certification. He cannot do school buses. only state patrol can, but it does update the laws on regular DOT and how they're working through that. Um, so we have annual eval evaluations on procedures and protocols related to the safety of the students, staff, and community within Becker. Um, we're

041updating technology this year. This is a big one. Um, we are adding we got a new routing system. So, we're adding new routing, new GPS, and new kids scanning um is all coming this year. We did roll out the um the app to parents in January. Uh it was wellreceived. We had several comments from the parents calling in. I love it. It's easier to read than the three things that they were going to before. So, um we're also installing new tablets in the buses um in the summer of 2025. These tablets will have all the routing on them as well as student information and student scan information. Um therefore, the the drivers have instant access if a kid is um allergic to a beasting. If I have that in there, which I do have the

042beasting um stuff in there, if I have it in their file, if that kid's going, I can't breathe. that was stung or something, they can just click on that student and have that information right there. Hey, that kid has an EpiPen in his backpack. So, you know, it it just helps with the safety aspect of that. Um, student scans will now be able to be tracked by them scanning or the driver manually putting them on the bus. So, before they had to scan them, otherwise we had no way of knowing. Uh, now the driver can manually say that kid is on the bus. That will also help with us enforcing the kids using the scan cards because they can say right now with the old system they could say, "Well, I didn't ride that day.

043Now we have," no, the driver put you on that day. So, we have seven days in a row that you haven't scanned. We need you to scan. Um, we do have the trainers coming out uh the first three days of school to help the drivers make sure that they are comfortable with the technology and know how to use it um to the best of their abilities. Um and then again just providing uh more staff development and use of technology um to enhance the teaching and learning here. Um the drivers do have a lot to learn. So um some of them are really excited about it. Uh I am. And some of them are dreading it. So we'll see. Some of them don't even do email. So we'll see how this goes. But hopefully they'll be

044they'll be happy with it. So, thank uh and then one that's not on here is is the IROD process that we went through which the board was some of the board members have been trained on that IROD process as well. Uh but doing the IROD process for the transportation department we focused on three or we identified I guess three areas of improvement and they'll be focusing on that this coming year as well. So, uh safety, communication and morale were the three that came to the top when we those were the top went through that. So, and we are we've already implemented some of that and then um Jeremy I and I have had a few other meetings with the shift of everything on the new roles of who who's taking over and who's doing what

045part of those processes to uh to better our department. Thank you very much. Next up is uh Steph Leash from Sher Northern Right Special Co-op. So, some of you may not know her as well, but uh Steph's been with us for some time. I don't know how long how long you been here, Steph. 10 years. 10 years. And so, she'll talk a little bit about the co-op. These don't necessarily fully tie into our they weren't part of our goals because they're through the co-op sher Merlin, right? But they they still are relevant to our students. Obviously, I tried to pick some that I felt were really relevant to the Becker School District and impacted our um focus areas for a strategic plan. Just kind of big picture of special education though. Right now we have

046539 students who are eligible for special education services and receive services in our district. There's 13 qualifying areas. Right now we have students in 12 of those areas. Um if you kind of look at the next slide, the piraphph gives a little better um picture. So as you can see speech and language is about um what is it? 30 30. Yeah, it's a huge chunk of our um special education population and a lot of that is at that elementary age in grades three and five. They'll typically kind of meet those articulation goals. So, we'll uh reduce our special ed numbers um a little bit as students get older. Other areas though that we have a larger population in is specific learning disability. Uh specifically that would be reading, emotional behavioral disorder, other health disability. A

047lot of students will qualify with that ADHD um medical diagnosis, ASD. And then that developmental delay again is this those children ages zero to seven. And then once they reach age seven, they have to qualify in one of the other categories in order to receive services. So I just wanted to make sure you had kind of a big picture of how many students we have and what those areas are um of service. When we look at compliance and goals, one area we're always looking is just reimbursement. How can we get money back? So, a big area for that is at MA billing. We service kids with transportation, with medically um Medicare, uh with onetoone um PCAs, they're called, or pair professionals. They have to really be significant though, like they have to meet some criteria.

048we have you don't have to um feed them or give them a G tube or they have to be you know major onetoone handhold to do anything or hand overhand for writing so it's got to be a significant piece for us to build back for that MA billing um it's a lot of paperwork too our speech and language teachers get the brunt of that and I think they they do a lot of paperwork so they have to go into sped forms they have to do probably you know two hours a week sometimes of just paperwork to do the MA billing and then a lot of our um other DCD teachers and those with more medically complex um kiddos will do our MA billing too. So just working on um increasing that revenue every year. So

049we'll give training, we give support, we have staff from the co-op and from Becker come out and give training for that. Um improving special education referral and evaluation and our due process systems is really important. So just kind of streamlining everything in special ed. It seems like there's a lot of redundancy in our paperwork. If you've ever just looked at a IEP, sometimes they're like 30 pages. They're really long. So how much can we just kind of um give teachers more drop- down menus and give them sentence starters and all those pieces so that they have less work to do and they can spend more time with kids. So we're working on ways to do that. Um and then just encouraging that we're documenting well so that we get as much funding back as we

050could. We have Ken, we have kids going to day treatment. They're going to Claris Health. They're going to Northway Academy. So, how do we make sure that our um documentation is correct? So, we're improving systems for that as well. Another area is just sta strengthening staff training and professional development. There's just a lot to learn for special education and sometimes, you know, one year you might be teaching a reading class and then the next year you're teaching a math class. And so, how do we ensure that our staff um are trained in those high lever practices? This year, we're excited. We have a um our co-op board, thank you, approved um special ed instructional coach. So that person's going to come in and to those teachers teaching really, you know, new curriculums or if they're

051a newer maybe a tier one teacher, um how can we give them specific coaching on those higher leverage practices and our best instru instructional strategies? Um we're trying to do train the trainer programs, give consistent orientation for new teachers and special educations throughout the year. Uh we're ensuring our program compliance moni monitoring and that we have quality asurances. Uh we just got a letter I think June 30th from MDE that um our special education team at Becker um had no indicator areas and we were 100% compliant in all of our special ed due process. So, that was awesome. And that's a huge um kudos to all of our special ed teachers because you submit all these files and then they have someone that kind of reviews it all and they, you know, just look at

052all the errors you could possibly make and we had zero errors. So, that was great. So, um it's always good to get that letter. Um we also have training just with that compliance with restrictive procedures. So, if a student is out of control, what non-verbal things can we teach all of our staff so that they're working? And if they would have to ensure that a student is um safe by doing a restrictive procedure, we're all trained. So, there's documentation, there's training, and we do that every year for our teachers. And then um just ensuring that our data and behavior support systems are in place meaning we have consistent progress monitoring that everyone is trained consistently so that we um have a goal, we have a specific skill and then how often are we monitoring a

053student's progress. We have co-op BCBAs that have been coming out. She's been we have two of them actually and they've been really good um behavior board certified behavior analysts. So they'll come in, they'll kind of watch the student, ask what we're want wanting. Then they'll actually go hands on in and train, and then they'll come back and follow up and say, "Hey, how did this go? Did it go well?" And if they say no, then they'll kind of watch again and say, "Okay, here's why." Or they'll say, "Uh, let's try something else." And so it's just been really nice to get some really trained staff come in and give our staff in Becker progress monitoring and behavior support. Thank you. Thanks, Steph. Next is Kevin. Are you going up to the podium? All right. Go

054ahead. Sure. I don't blow very much. Like I said, Kevin and Carla get the special role of being able to do this every year and there was information in here, but I don't know, somehow it got zapped out. Um, but anyway, that was Jeremy. Um, so it's really the goal six. It's the you know maintaining the fiscal responsibility and allocating the resources strategically and effectively. Um there's three uh strategic plan objectives. One is uh to annually we evaluate and allocate those resources and really the district has maintained the spending at the budgeting levels that you all approve during the year. uh we haven't gone over those. So, we've been sticking to those budgets. Uh under the second objective, the annually manage and monitoring ongoing facility needs and use of space. Uh as Felicia had mentioned,

055one of the big things is the decentralizing of those kitchens. Um it's actually a two-year process. U I don't know if she did mention it's all within the budget. Uh the state actually allowed us to have more than a three-month fund balance uh in food service through this year. Um so what we're spending will bring it down by next June 30th. Uh couple of the other projects that we're doing. Uh the referendum projects are all done except for the high school roofing here. That will be done this summer and it'll get completed next summer. the primary roofing it was from insurance from our hail damage that'll be completed at the end of this summer. Um then the third item I wanted to mention you know meet fiscal management goals is defined in the board policy

056as you all know we have that 8% fund balance policy and we're currently above that so we are meeting that also that's it short thanks Kevin and u our final uh presenter is uh Jen Johnson our director of community ed and related services. And uh Jen's started in February, right? January 27th. All right. Yeah. Just over five months. So, thanks for the opportunity to be here. I'm excited to be in the world of community ed. All right. Here we go. So, this was the goal uh for this year. Um by the 2526 school year, we'll create a plan to utilize and document increase community partnerships to provide greater opportunities for students. uh and we are working on that not only for students but also for community members. So um that's really exciting. Mine's going to

057be a little bit different than the previous folks that came up because I am new to this and just wanted to share kind of a a fivemonth um recap. So initially right away when I got here I knew we needed to do some updates um to our website and our system called class registration. Um and that's gone really well. Received a lot of positive feedback from community members um and families trying to register their kids for things. So, those updates have gone well and we're continuing to tweak things um as needed with that. Um, one change that we made uh is creating an online form and online signups to reduce phone call volume and high demand classes. We have several programs that are um high demand and it was a phone call system where call

058in at 12:00 to try to get in for this and just doesn't work when there's only a couple of us and lots of people wanting this. An example was uh swimming lessons for that. So, we created an online form and we were able to see down to the second of time people registered for that and call them back in order that they had um filled out the form to be able to get their um swimming lesson opportunity. So, it was more efficient for staff time and help families to um get in. They wouldn't have to sit there and call call call and hope that they were the next one to get picked up um from the phone call. So, um that's been great. We're also looking at some of our other high demand classes about

059how we can do that to make it equitable for people to get opportunities to participate in those classes. Um, this summer we did or uh for this summer, this spring, we distributed our summer catalog for our classes in the Patriot newspaper and then districtwide to all families uh for summer community ed. We hadn't done a printed catalog like that in I was told from our staff and community ed over five years. So, got several emails from families saying, "Thank you for going back to a paper version. It's not a big thick catalog that you may have seen from several years ago. It was a one-page flyer that had all of the classes listed on both sides. People liked that format to be able to see the classes organized by date to be able to register

060for what they wanted. So, that had classes, those are currently going on. Summer is really, really, really busy for community ed. So, we've had a ton of classes going on. Um, it's been going well. um from our preschool classes, little three and a half year olds in our early education building um doing uh science and all down on the farm, fun classes like that, up to um trips for seniors and we'll have different um seniors from the community coming in and wanting to sign up for some of the trips that we're doing. Um so that has gone well. Um, back to our goal area, we've incre increased collaboration with Big Lake and Monaceel community ed programs to be able to offer some classes that we all used to try to offer individually, but we had

061to meet certain minimums for the companies we were partnering with to offer those classes and none of us were able to meet those. So, by partnering all together, if we have five and Monaceel has six and Big Lake has three, we're able to run the class. So, all the kids get the opportunity and then we just take turns about who hosts those classes. So, that's been nice to be able to bring in some of those classes that in past years we've been able we've had to drop uh because we just haven't had enough registered. Um so, that's been great. That's also a partnership that we do for trips for seniors. We've done a trip to or we're going to be doing a trip to a winery that's going to be coming up. Um a Still

062Water River boat cruise, Target Field and Murray Steakhouse. So, some fun opportunities. When I came in right away, I think within my first week, I had calls from people saying, "We used to do trips. Can we do that sort of thing again?" Um, and we've been able to bring that back on a monthly uh, basis. So, that's been really exciting. Um, we've adjusted the registration processes to reduce credit card fees. I was amazed at the amount of money that we had to pay in credit card fees when I, uh, was hired and was looking at our budgets and what we had to pay um, for those fees. So, we've uh, kind of changed some of our policies and things on that to be able to save money on fees, giving people credits on their account.

063they're going to be taking classes again with community ed. Um, and it saves us on paying the credit card fee on the front end and the back end. So, that's been a beautiful thing to be able to um save some money on those uh credit card fees. Um, we've held two community education advisory council meetings. Um, so thanks to council member Hubard. He serves on that uh committee. So, we met in March and in May and that's uh going well. getting a couple new members and people that are interested and motivated and giving feedback and advice about how we can improve things within community ed. So, that's been great. Um, and we've increased visibility and improved communication um within community ed. So getting lots of feedback from families about reminders that they get about classes

064and messages that they know what classes are coming up and what they can register for and some data to um demonstrate that in March and April our revenues for that have exceeded our previous years. In June two uh June 2025, we set a new record in collected registration fees for programs more. I went back at least 10 years in data and we had never had so many uh people or registrations in our June programming which also meant um higher collection of uh revenue. So we give that obviously some of that back to the instructors who are teaching the class but that also covers our um admin fees and things like that to be able to run the classes. So um that was great. Um, also with improved communication, we uh decreased the funds owed in

065our early education program. So, there's a tuition that they have to pay for that from April until the end of June. I made lots of phone calls and connected with families and decreased the amount owed by by almost 80% 79% which was about $67,000 that we collected back um and brought that number down significantly. um the number of families that need to pay and with those that still have to pay, we're coming up with a payment plan so they can get that taken care of. But that's helpful. Obviously, we need to take pay our early education teachers and things like that. So, to be able to collect that $67,000 in revenue uh was great. Uh plans for our next academic year, we're going to grow and strengthen the community education advisory council. um continuing to

066get new members and feedback from the community. We're going to develop a community needs assessment. What I can find, our last one was done about 2012. So, we need to do that again to see what our community needs and wants and how we can continue to serve them well from our community program. So, we'll collect that data and implement modifications um after we assess that data. We're going to continue to increase our partnerships with area community programs and the Becker Community Center. They just hired a new assistant director working there. Um, so her and I are meeting and creating plans about how we can partner and work really well together to serve um, Becker in the community. Um, like I said, I've only been here a little over five months, so I found it was

067really important in this first year to um, learn, listen, and observe from people around me, identify those strengths area and areas for improvement, and then act upon them. So, we've been making small changes that have had a big impact. And I'm excited to continue um to do that and continue our visibility and prioritizing communication and engagement, going to all the classes, meeting with the instructor, seeing families, answering questions. I think visibility builds trust and people can ask questions and know that they're going to be served and have a great experience through our community programs. So, thank you. And a perfect uh transition to what I was going to say as well is the the amount of feedback and and things that we've been able to obtain through all these departments uh from you know you

068talk about the IROD for transportation. We've got food service getting feedback from from employees and getting some equipment from that uh the 80% that Mr. KF talked about and and much more as well. uh just trying to and you like I said you guys have been through the IROD process as well and we've used that quite a bit on things and so it it automatically provides that feedback for from within and and it makes it smarter than every single one of us in here because we got so many minds and ideas thinking about it and uh then speaking of smart uh just how wise and knowledgeable our our team is as you watch them present even I don't know if you paid attention to this but hardly ever were they looking at notes or reading

069from a script or anything like that it's because they have so vast knowledge of what what they're they're in charge of and uh and then they can relay rely on the the knowledge as well of their team members and those that they supervise as well. And it just it's a a credit to them that we do so well is because uh well like that's half the experience we have in our cabinet or just under half actually. But um it's incredible how much how much they know and even the new new people Kim and Jen and um just I mean they they've been in different systems and organizations as well so they bring a lot of knowledge as well but um they catch on so quickly and that's obviously beneficial for us and and the veterans

070like Kevin and we have another one yeah back here behind the scenes we almost uh we almost threw them on on the camera they were supposed to present this year I think technology has not presented yet because they've they've left um but we'll get we'll get Shane here next year and uh present presenting. So, um yeah, and then it just brings us to the final slide of uh any questions or anything related to that that you want to ask any of the individuals or uh personally I just want to thank everybody for their hard work. I think I'd probably speak for everybody. It's very cool because you can see how dedicated and how excited you are about the things you're working on that really comes out in your in you know in your presentation. So

071thank you very much for that. I got one question high school principal uh your unified P class first that's your first class right in unified y opportunities to grow. Uh so we have had conversations on on growing it. It takes uh the staffing to run it as well. So we have to look at areas where uh we may have the staffing to to offer it. There's there's definitely a good experience for the students all staff members all we looked at some music things. So nothing this next year but uh it's a it's a great program. We're glad it's Could you go into just a little bit more detail about it what the program actually is? Yeah. Steph can add as well. So you by edit uh so we now have for uh two straight years

072we have one uh teacher who's just teaching adaptive or is this the first year? One teacher doing a 1.0 known for Dave development with FIAD. So that's Alyssa Stevens and Alyssa Stevens had had seen some other programs uh utilizing unified FIAD. So, it's our GCD students who've always received, you know, physical education time uh according to their IEP and then offering as an elective for general ed students. And she had a fantastic partnership where the general ed student it'd be onetoone. It was almost perfect each trimester general ed student with a a special ed student and work together on the activities. uh she would uh educate the general ed students on what the disabilities are like Steph highlighted the different disability areas so they would become informed on the individual but also informed on the

073background behind what that disability is what the student may need how to best support them they would do some reflection on how you might apply this in a different setting you outside of that IED course so uh we did allow it where a student could a general ed student could take it each trimester. Some just took one trimester and it we it did a did fill one of our five requirements and it's I mean that's a it's like a win-win. Yeah, it's awesome. It's awesome for the special ed students that are in it. It's awesome for the the general road students that are participating as well. It's a good deal. So why we have it here? Outdoor education. Outdoor outdoor wreck. Yeah, outdoor wreck. Yeah. Yeah. So, Matt Aaho uh it it was really uh

074he offered it as outdoor recreation and it was a third trimester class and it was uh he had found a canoe uh in a back fiad storage area that I think was last uh approved for water safety in 1996 in the the Brad Novak area era. Uh but they use that for some training in the pool uh to uh get uh students comfortable in in a canoe. They did take a trip to uh area park to do some uh it was really weather dependent, you know, so he didn't know if he was going to be doing ice fishing. He didn't know if he was going to make uh be setting tents. He didn't know if he was going to be building fires. So he was really reactive to uh the the weather. and they did

075some biking at the city park. So, uh, he had a plan, but he had to adjust, uh, significantly. So, that was a good ad. Awesome. Thank you. Any other questions? Oh, well, I want to thank all of you for coming tonight and presenting. It's It's truly amazing to see all the work behind the scenes and because of all the support you guys do for the schools, it helps the rest of us be successful what we do. So, thank you for all that you do in each of your situations. Anybody else have comments? All right. Thank you. If you guys want to leave, we won't feel bad. Thank you all. No, you can't. Brings item number two, reports. We'll start with superintendent report. So, uh, planning this fall is taking place. Executive committee has met. We've

076created staff development plan. We've got uh number of topics more more letters training with the read act curriculum analyst training which we have to do every single year the refresher for that more on data than we probably have done in the past and we've got a number of other topics that are building specific as well. So we have those in there we also have included some opportunities for hourly staff. We've added uh you don't have to zoom in on me. Uh we've added uh uh we've added uh I forgot my train of thought. I thought about it. Oh, the special ed training that that Steph was talking about we did the August 21st is one that we're going to do with the co-op al together and then the superintendents will be a part of that

077as well and and we'll have other staff there as well. But uh you're just really looking forward to to this and we'll shore up that schedule as we move forward and get closer to the date. The other one I guess I forgot to mention in there the first date I guess it is in there but uh is our safety videos and things we've have uh six hours or seven hours of safety videos that we have to watch each year. We've we've kind of condensed those down. So because a lot of people have seen those for well myself I've seen them for over 20 years. Bloodborne pathogens and things like that. So we try to condense those down uh and then we're going to try to create a longer one for the the first time through

078when you're a new employee. But but uh the the review of it, we don't need to watch six or seven hours of those videos to Yeah. Yes. Uh to know that we have to put on plastic gloves for for spills and and things like that. Uh we're also I sent an invite out to the board, but we're looking to have a joint meeting with the mayor and Becker city council members and possibly others as well. Uh the meeting scheduled to take place on July 29th. uh just an opportunity to look for areas of efficiencies and working together to support our communities. I think it's a great opportunity uh for us to kind of see where we've got redundancies and and things like that and where we can help each other out in a lot of

079different ways. And uh so thanks to Mayor Coinger for bringing that forward and hopefully we can get as many people from here as we can to attend. I think we'll also have some of our cabinet members that just presented as well attending because a lot of times they're working with the city as they spoke of as well. uh special ed staff. I think Steph talked about this as well, but I do have that letter that she was talking about where we had a a positive report for our uh IDC record review and our compliance report. So, that that's gone well and it's they've done a really nice job of that. That's that's not something it seems like every time in my experience with this is the files that they pull are the ones that have

080the mistakes on them and and then uh the other ones that seem to be always correct, but we've been able to get through that this year with no no issues and a positive review. And then the final one, resolutions for legislation are due mid-semember for the MSBA delegate assembly. So we have to approve those through the board by midseptember. But if you have any topics, thoughts, ideas, or resolutions, I'll probably submit similar ones as we did last year. We can submit as many as we want. Hopefully, we can just continue to press and press and press and and get some things that that will benefit Becker and our school district as well and other schools. Any questions for Jeremy? All right. Thank you, Jeremy. Moving on to item 2B, committee reports. Connie, I believe you

081have a finance. Um, so on June 25th, we had a finance committee meeting and it was about the board salaries and how how to maybe move forward with that. And Kevin did pull um several school districts or a couple school districts and we are pretty low on our on our pay. We haven't touched it at not in my not in my tenure. No. So, um we did come up with a plan which is in the um consent agenda and it it will be a an annual based um pay instead of doing per meeting type thing. So, we won't have to turn in time sheets. It'll just be a monthly um you know, monthly pay for each one of us. And it gives us a little bit of a bump in pay, but we're still on

082the low end. Just so you know, we're still kind of on the low end. So, but it kind of gives us a little bit of an increase. So, and it's in consent agenda. So, I don't know. Kevin, did I miss anything? No. And then we also discussed the um operational levy that's on the agenda too, which will be discussed further later in the meeting. Okay. Any questions for Connie, Ryan, or Pete? You want to give a 284 update? Transportation 284. I can. Um, we met just last week and we have another meeting scheduled this week. Um, we have, excuse me, we have come to some agreements on some language stuff. Um, the financials are still very far apart. Um, we've been as open as honest as we can with them. um as we have with

083all the different groups when we meet with them, how much money we have. Um but they did make some movement. Um I feel like we have a much more positive working environment than we did the last negotiations. So hopeful and looking forward to getting to agreement much easier and quicker than than the last time. Any questions on that? If you want to give a BA update Meeting tomorrow. Is that your second? Technically we have our second. First item was just kind of some ground rules. So then you have tomorrow be the first. All right. Any other committee reports? All right. Moves us to item number three. I'll make a motion to accept the consent agenda. I'll second that. We have a motion and a second. Do we have any? Questions or discussions? Okay. All those

084in favor say I. I. I. All opposed. Motion carries. brings us to item number where am I here? Four resolutions are accepting donations. Make a motion to accept. Second. Any questions or discussions on resolution accepting donations? All in favor say I. I. All opposed. Motion carries. Brings us item number five, resolution for combined polling place. Jeremy, you want to explain that one real quick? Sure. We we do this every year. Um but our our previous or current, I guess, combined polling place is the city hall. Uh when we contacted city hall about our election for school board, they said they would like us to move it to the community center. And so this is just to change our combined polling place to the community center. And they their thought was just it it runs better.

085Um and and it's they just like essentially said city hall wasn't really available anymore as a poll only place from from their perspective. So this moves it to the community center which I when I voted last time it was much bigger area. So it's vote in the gym so much much nicer and the bigger parking lot too. It was pouring rain last time we voted if you remember when I voted anyway at that time. Yeah. So, this this moves it to to there. Uh, we will have to report this to the county. They also have to report that that's their place in the county, which I don't know if they've done that before, even when we had it voted, but should be should be pretty good. Motion to accept the combined in place resolution. I'll

086second. Ryan. All right. A roll call, too. These ones. these all on down need to be a roll call. Yeah. All right. So, any questions or discussions on number five, a combined polling, please place. I do find it ironic that we put a $6 million addition on a city hall that we can't lose the poll anymore. I just Yeah, I I think that I mean and I agree that parking is a big deal, but that kind of shocks me. All right, this will be a roll call, so I'll just come down the line. I'll say your name. You just tell me how you vote. Ryan Pet. I I Connie. Tory. I. Motion carries. Brings us to item number six, resolution of calling special election for operating levy. Want to talk about this one? Jeremy. Hand

087it off to Kevin. Dan, if you want to throw me back on the screen. It's it's really the second item under their the presentation. Um no not not me me but the screen the uh screen sharing from my iPad. Oh okay. I think it's at 789 or whatever. There you go. Okay, I'm sorry, not up on this one, but um so this is really just exploring the uh possibility of an operating referendum um to be held this fall in November. um some of the informations, you know, why why are we contemplating asking for new revenue from the taxpayers now? Um some of the things that the state is doing. Um one of the big ones is a compensatory. So they they originally it was going to go away. Uh they did reinstate it for a

088year. So for 25 26 it will be there at the same level it was but then 26 27 it is going away um of $150,000 that we have to try to come up with somewhere. So you know that's one of the items. U another thing is the unemployment insurance. They originally thought they had enough money to go through fiscal year 2627. um they with the original funding that they did back in 23 um but they found out that was only going to last about halfway through this summer. So they did put in another 100 million in to get it until the 26 27 school year. They put another 100 million in there. So should be enough for this year, next year, and year after. But then after that, they don't know where it'll come from.

089It's either local levies, uh, operating referendums, where that change will come from. Another item, uh, another new one that is coming up January 1st is the paid family and medical leave act. you know, there's there's the amount that gets paid into the state to pay the individual that's going to take the Minnesota leave or the leave. Um, but then there's also other costs that are associated with that, you know, uh, sub costs, uh, not being able to find subs. So, there's other costs that are also in involved with that. So, um might be some cuts, but this is also a part of that why we might need some of this. Um some other items, uh we don't know what's going to happen with the Reed Act. Um you know, they they've given us enough and

090and the MOU that we have currently goes through next summer, but that is only I believe to pay for through the elementary. So they don't Yeah. And they haven't done the 6th through 12th grade it is I think. Yeah. Except they haven't come out even with the regulations yet on that. Um so and they haven't they haven't come out and said oh we're going to give you money for that either. So we don't know what's going to happen with that. Um there they did do some reductions to the special ed transportation revenue that's already part of it. They've also said that there will be some reduction in the amount that the state is paying for the food for the meals, free meals. Um they also reduce the student support personnel aid and they reduce that

091by about 20 or 30,000. So so because of those things that as it stands right now they are going to go away uh the revenue sources for those. So that's the reason we're looking at this. Um obviously uh the rules that you would see um the board would have to approve if if they if it is their desire to take go out on a operating levy referendum by August 12th. We would have to approve a resolution um to be held in November of 2025. Uh you'll see some of the other dates. You know, there's a notice to the commissioners August 22nd. Uh absentee starts September 19th and then obviously the election day would be November 4th. Just dates that are out there. Um now we we just we picked two different amounts. Um as you'll

092see in here, uh $125 option and $175 option. the the first part of this is just it's their disclaimer. The balance questions that are here. They don't want to say, "Oh, this is exactly how it would look because we don't know yet how much we'd want to do." So, they're just putting their disclaimer out there. Um, and as you can see what an election question could may look like. Yeah. There you go, Gary. Um then again this would be the one for $125. It it just says you know what it's for. It's an operating refer excess operating referendum and it's authorization to add $125 per pupil. And obviously this would be a by voting yes on a ballot question. It is voting for a property tax increase. And I'll in a couple more slides I'll

093show you what that uh would how much it would be. Um so with the 125 thou $125 per student, it would bring in uh approximately $422,000 uh additional dollars to the revenue. Um I didn't mention some of I did for the compensatory that's 120,000. Our unemployment amount that we pay out um for the summer unemployment is like 230,000 and then the other um Minnesota paid family leave that's around 110,000. So roughly more than this, but that's why we kind of picked two amounts in there. Um the tax impact for the next slide. Um you can see so for a homestead residential property at 200, 400, and 600,000. So that would be the value of the home. Um, for a middle $400,000 it would be $76 a year. For a $600,000 home would be $115. And

094then you can see the different property type classifications. You got your commercial. You've got your apartments. Um, the seasonal doesn't get charged on this. Uh, any of the egg uh dwelling value. So, they take the home in one acre. That that's what the egg part is. Um, so then you'll see those amounts too, how much they are and it does and it calculates out the monthly amount too, but the middle column is the yearly amount. Um, then the second uh amount that we looked at was $175 per pupil unit. Same thing. The ballot question is the exact same as the 125 except it states 175. And then the amount of revenue that would bring in is $569,825 and the tax impact on that. So, for a homestead, a residential homestead for $400,000, it's $102. Uh,

095for a property valued at $600,000, it's 153. And, you know, you could you could say, okay, if you wanted a $500,000 value would be in between that 102 and 153. So, it' be what 127 about. Uh and then the same thing it shows for the different property type classifications and that questions we get. So if all that funding goes away, will $569,000 replace that? Yes. Okay. Will the 422 replace it? And not quite. very very short. Yeah. Very short. And and there has, you know, uh or I've heard from some board members that they do want to try to increase the fund balance also because we are just right at 8% or slightly above. Yeah, 8.2 or whatever% but and and as you've seen some of the comparisons, you know, uh when the auditors were

096here last year, you did see when they showed the state average, we are below the state average. I mean, state average, if I remember right, was right around 23% and we were right at, you know, I think last, well, we were a little bit higher last year because of the way the settlements came. We're not below the state average or the bottom of the state. Well, yeah, we're we're lower. I mean, but anyway, you guys did see that that, you know, our our fund balance was lagging behind the state. So, some of that additional could go into there, try to build it so much per year. And it's my understanding too that this is a common thing throughout the whole state right now because the state had a bunch of money. They started a whole

097bunch of programs that they didn't have enough money to pay for and now they're sticking on us. So, it's not that these aren't choices that us as a school board or community have decided to make the statement and for us. Now, we have to be they're kind of doing it to us. Was it Channel 9 that just had a article on this? They're going to see more schoolies now than they were before. So quick question too on the existing levy that we that we like this is obviously being allocated to those funds that we're losing. Correct. That's the idea behind that's what the idea behind it would be and then the first one we're still using are we using it for everything that we spend on to balance the budget. I mean that along with

098you know all the other revenues that we get it's the general from the state the tax levy any grants uh you know any of those things. So all those together pays what what we have right now including these things they are paying for but if those go away then our revenue is going down too or we have to cut you know four of those reductions that the state not going to continue to pay for that. I guess would be the question too of how to sell right to the public. It's we don't know for sure if they're going to cut they fund them at half or they still fund them. Not going to fund at all. That's the tough part in but in law so far I mean there are the things that are in

099law. The compensatory is a is a draw. They did also did a um uh one of the laws for special ed, they put a committee together. They're going to try to save some money, the improvement committee, I think, towards uh special ed costs, but we'll see where that goes. But but we do know the compensator has gone away. Uh we do know that the unemployment is going to go away. I mean, as it is in law right now. And we know Minnesota paid family leave is already coming. I think that's that's the scariest one. I think and they don't and we don't know. Well, all they did was put a cap on on that. They said it could only go to 1.1% as of now. So, let's say the usage goes more than the 1.1%.

100Will the state throw that on to you know the the schools? It is a government program. We don't know. I mean they can do that too or they may increase the amount. You know, you never know. They don't know yet either thing because they're waiting to see what's going to happen or what's the usage or you know and that puts the schools in a tough position. They don't do those things and they don't know and we don't do this, you're cutting $400 and thousand dollars next year. Well, and the unfortunate thing is like levies are always a year behind Yeah. We wouldn't we wouldn't even get the revenue until 26 27. I just also want to go on the record to say that I did I went and testified on almost everything that Kevin You

101and Jenny both and Jenny. Yeah. Yeah. We not that we're not in favor of people taking paid family leave, but we just need to know where the money's coming from and that's a problem. And unemployment, same thing. And the ESST, we testified on that, too. This says it's closer to that August date than there like to go for. Um, yeah, you could. I mean, you just Well, and and if and if you we decide to go forward, we we do have to approve question the the flash, but we don't have to approve that until August. Yeah. Right. August 4th. The amount. Yeah. Approve until August. We're just August 4th. Is that our next meeting? Yes. And at that time, it would be the amount and the actual resolution saying we're going to p operating. Is

102there any reason that we would consider asking for more so we don't have to do another it uh you know one of the discussions you know if if you did want to do um some growth like in the fund bounce um then you probably and I let's say it's $100,000 a year that you'd want to do for 10 years well that really a million dollar more than what we got right now. Um, that would put our fund balance after 10 years if this is a 10 year and I think it would be a 10 year levy. So then that would give us about a $4 million fund balance or twoish for that additional million dollars and that would get so the 3.2 two is roughly 8% but whatever that would be it would probably only

103put it up to about well if three divided into six so then you're talking they would probably still be about 12% is really all it would even you know still wouldn't even get up to where the state average is it would grow itself so but you know so that that may be a Well, and you know, I'd rather split doing this that state ever and continue to move and catch it and an 8% fund balance is really only those months operating expenses. So, it it's important to understand that that's why that 8% is important and not below. And I mean, here's a a perfect example of why a district does need a fund balance. So, you know, you heard me discuss earlier about the tail damage that we had in the primary schools, the last

104of the projects or the fixes that had to be done from that. So, the insurance company is waiting until we get completely paid or completely finished with that project to turn in everything else. So, the insurance company only gives you so much upfront until you replace it. Then, they'll give you that depreciable value. Well, we still have $800,000 that we get to I have to claim back once that finishes. But we've been carrying the insurance company, you know, for a year here of $800,000 that they still hold us until that problem. So, I mean, if you know, and if we didn't have a fund balance, we wouldn't be able to do that. We have to borrow. Well, it wasn't that long ago. What, 10 years ago, districts were borrowing money at 3% 4%. And I

105mean, we were even fairly close to that. Yeah. 300,000. I think it's a good idea just from the fact that what state continues to give, but 3% and 2% I mean, our inflationary costs are just more than that. Running up big business. I guess it was just more than that. Any other questions or discussions? All right. Same as last question. Roll call vote. Go down the line. I don't know if you have a motion yet. Oh, no. I have a motion. I'll make a motion to accept the resolution for special election for operating. I second it. All right, Ryan. Hi, Pete. I I Connie, I motion carries. So then next month we'll discuss questions and amounts. Yeah. And I guess Kevin, I have two questions for you. Number one would be what is the average

106value home in our district? I don't know if SE Secretary of State or county has that. I mean, yeah. Um The last time we had the election, it was what 260,000. Yeah, it's probably twice that. It's probably at least closer between that 400 and 600. Yeah. I I mean, so that's what I was going to say. The numbers we're looking at are not that 200. They're more at the 600,000 house. Um and and you know, we'll put together like we did last time on whatever amount we decide that people be able to actually go on our website and you know put your value in and it'll calculate what the tax it's a tax calculator. I think it actually you put your address in there, right? I think you could do that last time. Yeah, I

107think you could and then it automatically pulls up. I think if I remember right brings us item number seven resolution of calling special election for schoolboard vacancy as you all know Troy has left the state so we have an opening and because it's longer than the few months we have to actually have an election for it. So entertain a motion for number seven. I'll make a motion to accept the resolution for calling a special election for schoolboard vacancy. I'll second it. we have any questions or discussions on that one? I I just I want to say that the uh filing period is January January uh July 29th to August 12th for that as well. So So if you know of anyone that wants to Is there a $2 fee? $2. Yep. Change cash. Exact. Uh

108uh yeah. July 29th to August 12. Are we going to advertise for that then or how do we make sure we get the word out? I think we need to Yeah, we can throw some ball. Is the newspaper guy still around? Oh, here tonight. He was at the chamber meetings in when we stopped here. I don't know if he's still here or not, but yeah, we can just so that if anyone knows anyone Yeah. This is kind of a non-election year, so right be pretty quiet. They can come into the district office to do that in between those those and it's only a three-year term, right? Because this he was this is one year first year. Yeah. Anybody wants to try it out? It's a good three-year term to try it out. All right. Roll

109call vote. Ryan I. B I I Connie I motion carries brings us to item number seven the resolution establishing dates for filing affidavit of candidacy that what you just talked was it was one ahead of myself I'll make a motion to accept the resolution establishing dates for filing affidavit candidacy we'll second that vote Ryan Pete I I Connie Cor I motion carries. That's the end of our agenda. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you all for coming. Well, I think there's the duplicates that