001- Of the school Board of Independent School district 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the role. - Daniels' here. Ellison. - Here. - Skaar. - Here. - Streiff Oji. - Here. - Thompson. - Here. - Arcand. - Here. - Beloyed - Here. - Okay, now if you could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. - [Attendees] I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. - We have before us an agenda. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda? - So moved. - By Ellison. - Second. - Second by- - I'd like to make a motion here. - Yes, we'll get it in there. So second by Thompson. - Daniel.
002- Daniel, sorry. - All right. Mr. Skaar, you have a motion? You wanna add, amend? - Yes, I'd like to make a motion to video stream the public forum. - Okay. We have in front of us the motion to video stream the public forum. - I object to considering this question. - Okay, on what grounds? - It is on diplomatic and an improper matter at this moment, we haven't had time to discuss that. - Okay. So I'm still gonna call it second and see if everybody else wants to discuss it. Is there a second? - What are we seconding? - His motion to video that stream. - If I make an objection, then we just have to have a two thirds vote on my objection. - Okay, you want- - The matter. - Okay, so.
003- I'm objecting to the motion to consider videotaping public forum at this time. - Okay, so. Okay, so then I'll, yes? - Is there more discussion on that? - This has come up several times. - There's no discussion on the matter. We make a vote and that's it. - This has come up several times where- - Court of order. (gavel thudding) - So what we have in front of us is objection. So we're gonna ask those in favor of the objection so that we won't continue. Say, aye, all in favor of the objections. - Restate it please. - What's the objection is? - The objection is to consider the motion to video record public forum. - So objecting to that motion? - Yes. - So if you want to object to that motion, say aye.
004- [Attendees] Aye. - Opposed - Me. - All right, so then we have the objection. (gavel thudding) Alright, thank you. - I have another motion. - Yes sir. - This could be a motion or could be a recommendation, but to extend courtesy to public forum speakers and allow the speakers to finish their final thought without the fear of a gavel at three minutes. And to eliminate the gavel entirely. And simply state that your time is up unless the speaker is unruly our community deserves courtesy. - Okay. You've heard the motion to add, to take the gavel out and allow them to finish their sentence. - Final thought. - Which is. - Is there a second? Is there a second? Okay. And there's no motion on it then? It's failed. Yes, Mr. Skaar, - I'd like
005to make a motion to add to the agenda the progress on corrective actions to the enrollment procedures at the high school to prevent 22 year olds from erroneously enrolling as students. - So we have a motion, I'm asking you, say that again to? - Look at the progress of corrective actions to the enrollment procedures at the high school to prevent people who shouldn't be enrolled in the high school. - All right. So we have that motion in front of us. Do I have a second? The motion does not move forward. - One last one. - Yes sir. - Which I do not require a second on, which is I want to move on the consent agenda. 5B and 5G could operational items for discussion and a separate vote. - For the, we'll move those right
006after the consent agenda. So we'll when they're bring the consent agenda up, we'll prove the consent agenda with those items moved off. Then we'll hold the discussion on that immediately after. That's how the procedure works. - So, point of order? - Yes. - Shouldn't they just be added to operational items are considered as a vote. Shouldn't they be added to the operational items? - Normally, we put 'em right after the consent agenda. That's how we do it. So, we can approve the consent agenda with those two missing or pulled off and then we go right to discuss those. - Okay. - And what two items was it again, from the consent agenda, you wanted to pull? - Payment of invoices 5B and 5G quarterly revenue and expenditure report. - Okay. So right now in the
007front of us we have a motion and a second to approve the agenda set before us. Any further discussion? Okay. This will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - Aye. - [Attendees] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. We have an agenda. We also have set in front of us a consent agenda. This can trades a variety of business items that come to us monthly, including donations. We're very grateful to the support we're showing every month our staff and students. Thank you all those who contribute to our school district. In front of us now we have a motion to approve. Can we get a motion to approve the consent agenda without 5B and 5G? Can I get a motion? Yeah. - Point of point of order. So we are approving the agenda, not without
008them but with them moved after the consent? - Yeah, they won't be approved in this vote. We'll talk about separately. - Correct, so moved. - Okay, do I have a second? - Second. - Second by Ms. Daniels. Okay, this will be a voice vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the role. - Daniels. - Aye. - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed? - Aye. - Okay, so now we've got a consent agenda without stop. All right. I'm looking for, on my consent to just give me a minute. I can't find it on here. - Page 14. - I got it. All right, so we have page 14 and the first question we have is 5B. - Mm hmm. -
009Okay. Can we get questions on 5B? - Yes. There were questions with, this is on page 14, green solar leasing, LLC. It has a description of electricity. Is that electricity or is that the lease payments back to Green Solar? - That's the lease payment back to Green Solar. - So it's not really for electricity. Okay. - I guess I'd have to look at that one to be sure. I haven't looked at those invoices in some time. - Some of these cost like right way caulking, which is $25,000 in change, is that part of the referendum and LTF, it was, okay. Good. - I noticed that there was a significant amount of unemployment almost, it was like seven, $800,000. Was that the one that was separately funded by the legislature a few months ago? So that's-
010- It would be- - Funded? - Yeah. - So it's funded. - Yeah, we break that out depending on the type of employee. So some of it would've been just regular traditional unemployment and some of it would be summer term unemployment. - So these are more general questions. So on the suppliers, I noticed that there's multiple suppliers for multiple things, for example, custodial supplies. I mean what have we done to the supply chain to you know, streamline it? How do decisions get made? Does each for just, let's use custodial supplies. Does each school district or not school district, each school facility, are they on their own to order? - Yes, we don't have centralized purchasing. - So you don't have centralized, have you looked at centralized purchasing? - We've considered it, but it's not anything
011we've pursued, yep. - [Skaar] Is there a reason why we haven't looked at centralized purchasing? - I guess, you know, as we've thought through it would require additional personnel and so we haven't done to. - [Skaar] I don't understand that at all. - To completely centralize our purchasing, we don't have somebody with capacity to do completely centralized purchasing. And so it's just not something that we've been interested in pursuing completely at time. - [Skaar] So the resources that would be in each individual school that are doing the purchasing could be rolled up into the district and probably have better visibility across all suppliers? - Yes, but for example, like on the custodial supply purchases for example, that might be minutes of somebody's day periodically to, you know, make that purchasing. And so to roll all
012of that is you can't reduce that cost. So we haven't spent a great amount of time to look into it. It's something that is on our radar of something that we could look at in the future, but- - [Skaar] Well, I would suggest that you look at it. - Sure. Okay. - [Skaar] The other, do you use GPOs at all? Does the school district use GPOs group purchasing organizations at all? Does it state? - Sure. Yep. - [Skaar] We do. - Cooperative purchasing. - [Skaar] So out of our spend rate, how much is with GPOs? - Oh, I don't know. - [Skaar] 50%, 20%? - I wouldn't hazard to guess. - [Skaar] So I noticed there's a lot of Amazon purchases. So what controls do we have over Amazon purchases and where are these coming
013from? Are they coming from all the schools or from just district staff? - Oh, yep. It's from virtually all departments in the district. Amazon is difficult because they invoice as they ship. So we may have, you know, an individual place, a very large order, but then as they ship over multiple shipments coming from multiple different facilities, it ends up being a great amount of Amazon invoices. - [Skaar] What are the controls that you have over Amazon purchases? - Well, that purchasing starts at the building level. And so the, you know, individual school or department would have a process in, an individual would put together a list of items that they need to purchase. It would go to the school secretary or admin assistant and then that would go to the, whatever their internal processes are
014at the building level. But largely like the principal would approve that. And then the, in the example of a school admin would place that order with Amazon. - [Skaar] So are you telling me that each school facility has its own purchasing procedures? - Yeah, like a principal may have a specific process that they would want, you know, to follow. - [Skaar] So there's no standardization on purchasing procedures in this district? - I wouldn't say there's no standardization. What I'm saying is that a building principal may have something different that they want internally. - One other question which has to do with another general question, which is contract approvals. I've been on the board I think, what, nine months, 10 months? I haven't seen a contract. What's the contract approval process? I mean, we're approving invoices,
015but why aren't we approving contracts at the board level? Can somebody tell me exactly what the procedures are and as to, why it would not want its governance and authority over approving contracts? - Yep, so. - Maybe that's for the board. - Is it the annual resolution in January? Is that where that's done? In January that's one of the annual resolutions that the school board grants that authority to the superintendent and then the business manager, which would be the assistant superintendent for finance and operations. - [Skaar] And there's no cap on that. - If it's over 175,000, then that comes to the school board. - [Skaar] Okay, I understand. I still don't understand why we wouldn't want, I would want to review all the contracts and approve them. - Okay. - [Skaar] I mean I
016think that's reasonable for the board to review contracts in the contexts of the invoices that we sign off on. - Can you pause for a moment? - Sure. - Ms. Beloyed. - Does each building have their own budget? - Yes. - Is it specific to every line item? Like anything they purchase, they have a budget for the entire year for? - We look at it as like a department budget. So they have the discretion. - So what would be the different departments? - Well for example, they would have like non-instructional supplies and instructional supplies. We don't require that they break out their budget between those two line items. We look at it as a department wide budget at the program level. - [Beloyed] So what kind of contracts would each building go into? That would
017be less than 125,000. - Oh, like a regular, like, a school building budget would not have any such contract. They would have small contracts perhaps, like. - [Beloyed] So how big would those contracts? - DJ for prom for example? Like that type of thing? - [Beloyed] Like a DJ for prom? - Yeah, you know, like that they'd have that type of item but they wouldn't have significant amounts of contracts. - [Beloyed] Could you estimate if it came in front of the board, each and every contract? I guess to answer your question, the assumption is that each one of these buildings, the principals are responsible for these things and they're responsible for the budgets. Right? - Mm hmm. - So the person that's responsible for the principals and all of these administrative buildings that is? -
018[Attendee] Yeah, those contracts all go to the assistant superintendent for finance and operations. I don't see them. So I don't have the scale of, I don't see all of them. I don't know like the numbers, but? - Can you estimate how many contracts there are? - [Attendee] I wouldn't wanna put an estimate to it, no. I would rather, you know, look at the data. - Would it be a lot more than a hundred? - [Attendee] A lot is relative, perhaps in the course of a year, sure. - Okay. But each building has control over that? - [Attendee] Yes. And then they work with the assistant superintendent on those, yes. - And he approves those? - [Attendee] Correct. - Okay, thank you. - [Arcand] Yes. Mr. Skaar. - One thing I think what I'm getting at
019is like what's decentralized at the school and what's centralized and what's the value within the district operations if there's not a lot of centralized functions, you know to help the individual schools. So is there, do we have a schedule of executive authorities or a schedule of authorities that we use in the district to show who, like where the decisions are centralized versus decentralized? Who has the authority for that? - No, I don't know. - [Beloyed] Wouldn't that be within the budget? - [Skaar] No. - I don't know exactly what that would look like. No. I would say no we don't have that. - Okay. Alright. Thank you. - I have a further. - Yeah, I'm just checking. You're done with both the just payment of invoices or? - I'm done with payment of invoice. One
020last one. Who's Radar Consulting? - That's a company that we use for recruitment. For staffing. Like a staffing agency. - I understand. - Yep. - Thank you. - Ms. Beloyed, I'm sorry, go ahead. - Who develops the budget for each building? - The building principal and then yeah, we give them an allocation based on a per student amount. - Okay, so. - And they're responsible for that. - They should know how much they need for each one of those items? - Yep. - Based off of previous years. Based off of. - Correct. - The current year's expenses, how often do they receive an update to their budget? - Well they have access to their budget within their system. So their administrative assistant could run it as often as they'd like. - So at any point
021in time they would know how close they are to hitting their budget? - Correct. Yep. - Okay, thank you. - Mm hmm. - Okay, any other questions? Did you wanna speak to 5G, the quarterly revenue and expense report that you had pulled? - Yes. - Mr. Skaar? - Yes, I was looking at the most current, I'm just trying to find it here. Yes, I got it. So I'm looking at, I'm reading it left to right. - What page are we on? - So it's page 75. Sorry. So I'm looking at for the year 2025 and 26. - Mm hmm. - Where you have the revenue budget at 146,782 and some change. And then year to date is 2025, 273. - [Attendee] I'm sorry, can you repeat that? - [Skaar] If you go to the, just
022go to the total revenue on page 75, sorry. (attendees chattering) On page 75. - [Attendee] 76. - [Attendee] Its not 75. - [Attendee] 76. - [Skaar] Yeah, it's page 75 on mine. - [Attendee] There was a board packet sent to us this evening with updates. - [Skaar] Okay. So if you go to the quarterly finance report, expenditure bride program. What's the new page number? - [Attendee] 76. - [Skaar] 76? - [Attendee] 76. - [Skaar] All right, thank you. So if you go to the revised budget number, that's 146,782,513. And then year to date it's 2025,273. How is that helpful? Why wouldn't you put in like what your estimate for the whole year is? I mean wouldn't you, do we go through an estimate process where we have like, here's our budget, here's what we're projecting
023for our revenues and our expenditures for the end of the year. Don't we do that? - Well that's essentially what our revised budget is would be, you know, as we update the budget based on what we know to change, that would be reflected in the revised budget. - [Skaar] So where's actuals year to date? - Year to date it actual and then the actual column would be like year end actuals. - [Skaar] So are you telling me that the revised budget is really not the budget, it's your revised estimate of year end? - Correct. We don't have monthly budgets. We have an annual budget. - So you don't break it down in month? - No. - Why is it. - I don't know a school district who does. - Okay. What about by quarter? -
024No. - Okay. So how do we keep track of what was the original budget, versus where we're projected to be? If we have a deviation, either plus or minus on revenue or expenses, how do we keep track of that? - Like in the revised, we'll make those changes in the revised budget when that is coming to the school board. - But what do we compare it to? The original budget, correct? - No, I always compare it, well there's a lot of work that goes into that number or those numbers. But we would compare year to date versus year to date to see kind of where are we trending versus where we've been in the past. If there's any updated, if you know formulas are based on enrollment, those certainly get factored in. Things that we
025know, changes that we're aware of, we track those and then we roll that into the revised budget. It's a very nuanced process. - Okay. So rather, Chair rather than take up more time on this, I would ask that, if I can talk with the financial folks and maybe with Wayne on how that is done, if? - Yeah and off off the, yeah, off time. You definitely can talk to Mr. Kazmierczak, Dr. Kazmierczak and they can, if there's, he can set that up. That's okay. - Is there a commitment there? - You'll have to contact him. I can't commit on his calendar. - All right. - So any further discussion. Can I get a motion to approve payment and invoices and the quarterly finance report? Okay. By Mr. Thompson. Is there a second? - Second. -
026Second by Ms. Beloyed. Any further discussion? This also will have, yes? - I can approve the invoice register but not the quarterly finance report 'cause I don't understand it well enough. - Okay, so you could just not approve it when we call the vote. - Sure. - So this be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Daniels. - Aye. - Ellison - Aye. - Skaar. - No. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed. - Aye. - Okay, the motion passes six to one. We're now to the point of public forum. This is the portion of the meeting, the public forum allows up to three minutes per speaker with one minute remaining an orange card will be held up, with 30 seconds
027remaining, a yellow card will be held up, at the end of three minutes, the gavel will be tapped. School district policy and data privacy laws preclude personal and student matters or data from being discussed publicly. Speakers may not make allegations, charges, or complaints against any student or employee. Speakers will be called up to the microphone and recognized one at a time. Only those individuals have been recognized will be allowed to speak. Members of the audience may not engage in conduct that disrupts any part of the conduct of its business, for the school board meeting, or otherwise impedes the ability to conduct our business. (bright music) (bright music continues) All right, well done students. Yeah. Great. All right. So we're gonna move right on to C2 Superintendent's report, Dr. Kazmierczak. - Alright, thank you. Students throughout
028the district will participate in a variety of activities this week to honor Veterans Day. Handful of examples here. Vadnais Heights Elementary students will gather for a patriotic afternoon program with special guests including students, family members, and close friends who have been invited to participate. Central middle schoolers will enjoy a Veterans Day assembly with a special guest who will speak about his experience serving in the military and members of the senior program will come together in honor of the holiday on Friday from 10 to 11:30 for coffee, treats and music by the Ukulele Bears. The high school's fall musical production of Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella opens this week. Shows will be performed at 7:00 PM this Friday and Saturday and next Thursday through Saturday. There's a 2:00 PM matinee on Saturday, November 15th. It is free
029for senior citizens who live in the community. Performances will take place at the high school's new performing art center, a venue that will give our talented student cast, crew and technical staff the opportunity to showcase some truly magical special effects. Find ticket information on the district's website. I'm excited to meet with families and community members tomorrow, Tuesday, November 11th from four to 5:00 PM for coffee with Dr. K. These informal chats held at Caribou Coffee in downtown White Bear Lake are a great way to connect. Additional coffee events are scheduled later this year. We'll meet over the noon hour on February 25th at White Bear Lake Area High School and we'll be back at Caribou the morning of May 5th. And it's that time of year. If winter weather is so severe that schools need
030to close, staff and families will be alerted in three ways as soon as a decision is made, a phone message and email will be sent to all guardians. A text message will be sent to those with texting capabilities. A message will be posted on the district homepage. Messages will be posted on the district's Facebook and Instagram pages. Information will also be on local media outlets. So make sure you don't miss the call. Let the district know of any changes in your email or phone number. And finally, in December, we'll be sending kindergarten registration information out to families with children who will begin kindergarten in the fall of 2026. If you have a child who will begin kindergarten next fall, please let us know your contact information so we can send you incoming kindergarten materials that
031will be mailed to families. Find the link to submit your information on the district's website. Thank you for helping us make sure we are welcoming all of our incoming bears. And sort of wrap this up, enjoy this fun video pulled together with the help of our elementary principals that was made to support this message. (bright music) - Hello Bears. We are excited to welcome our incoming kindergartners and of course our incoming kindergarten families. If you wanna make sure you're on our list of incoming kindergartners, please contact our enrollment office so we can get you added. - Why do you want to be on the list? Because soon we will be sending out kindergarten enrollment packets that contain details about our kindergarten and elementary programs. A list of experiences you can be doing now to prepare
032for kindergarten and an online link to enroll in our district. If you're ready to sign up to be a Bear, feel free to go to our enrollment webpage and get started today. - Speaking of the website, we hope you get online and check out what we're up to. You can find fun student and staff highlights in our community e-newsletter, see individual school happenings listed on the specific building pages of the website. Or follow us on social media for share outs. Fun videos can also be enjoyed on the district's YouTube channel. - One of the things you'll see when you check out the website is a page dedicated to the district's building projects made possible by the community support of the 2019 building our future bond referendum. The facilities, projects we've undertaken, including those completed at
033each of our nine elementary buildings, allow us to serve our students differently. We are transforming our students' environments and helping them design their future and create their success. - Regardless of which school you call home, you'll be in good hands, or maybe I should say good paws. Each school also has unique characteristics, including one that offers a school-wide advancement via individual determination, otherwise known as AVID and others with strong nature and science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics components, there's a strong commitment from all of our elementary educators to align the curriculum to state standards and to make it accessible for all students to learn and to implement the signs of reading or letters. District-wide transportation is also available for two unique programs. International Baccalaureate or IB programming is available at Matoska International and we're super
034excited for a Spanish dual immersion program at both Matoska International and Otter Lake Elementary. So no matter where you go, there's a strong commitment from all of our elementary educators to make rigorous curriculum accessible for all of our students. Your children learn and thrive here in White Bear. - Our schools are supported by engaged families and our district is supported by an engaged community. Some of our innovative and award-winning partnerships include those with the White Bear Center for the Arts, the White Bear Area YMCA, Tamarack and Wargo Nature Centers the University of Minnesota, Lakeshore Players and many others. - Sounds like a fun place to be, right? It is. If you're ready to enroll in the district, go to ISD624.org/enroll to find the online enrollment link. Or you can work with our centralized enrollment office
035to request printed kindergarten enrollment forms. Once you're enrolled, you'll receive your very own "I'm a Bear" t-shirt in the mail. - We look forward to having you join our schools so you also can experience student-centered instruction. Varied academic opportunities an environment that is safe, supportive, and challenging. And educators who inspire, facilitate, and challenge students nurturing curiosity and confidence. - We are transforming learning and we can't wait for you to start your school career as a bear. Until we see you in our buildings, we have a fun assignment for you. Learn the enthusiastic Go Bears cheer that our students enjoy taking part in. Try it with us on the count of three. One, two, three. - [Group] Go Bears. (bright music) - Remember that's geared towards kindergarten families, so. (audience laughing) - Alright, thank you Dr.
036Kazmierczak. We're gonna move along to discussion item D1 2024, 25 Comprehensive Achievement and Academic Readiness Summary and Achievement Integration Progress. Dr. Gillespie. - Good evening Chair. (indistinct) members of the board. I'd like to introduce Disa, bring her back, you've met her one other time. Disa Fabeck, our educational technology and assessment coordinator. Both of us will be sharing the annual update around the comprehensive achievement and academic readiness summary. This will be the first year that it's under that title. If you recall in the past it was World's Best Workforce. - [Disa] Alright, good evening members of the board, these are not new goals to you, these have been presented on previously. So we're providing an update with understanding that the new MDE requirement that prepared for lifelong learning has been included. So we're gonna go through
037some data associated with these goals and I believe, do you mind clicking? - [Alison] Oh yeah- - No, yeah, please. Thank you. And as Dr. Gillespie was saying, there's a lot of overlap between these goals and so we're presenting them as a shared presentation. Thank you. So the goal is listed at the top here and for every slide, I won't read the entire goal, but just rather talk about this particular graph. So as you can see on the left, we are only looking at a subgroup of students. We are looking at the students who are previously enrolled in our pre-K programming and how they're coming in as kindergartners. In August if you recall, we talked briefly about the FastBridge assessment and it gives us that risk level. So how, how likely are students to be
038at risk by the spring of that grade level? So pre-K, 12 and how they're progressing throughout the year. So you can see highlighted for this fall, 2025, 2026, 65% of our current kindergartners who were with us last year as pre-K for enrollees were on track. So they were at low risk is what FastBridge calls it. So this goal is a multi-year goal and you can see that progress has been elevated over time. So more and more of our incoming kindergartners that were previously enrolled with us are at low risk. So we shift a little bit. So looking at the data just slightly differently, that same assessment, early reading and FastBridge specific to literacy, we wanted to know, okay, not only how did our students do who previously were with us as pre-K students, but how
039did they do as opposed to students who were not enrolled with us. We can't make the assumption that they weren't enrolled in a pre-K programming, but we know that they weren't enrolled in White Bear Lake area schools. So you can see some of the differences for that fall screener in literacy with the darker orange being the kiddos who were with us as pre-K students. So just a different way of looking at that data. And again, this is not all kindergartners, these are separated into two subgroups. So change in color here just to give a little bit of a perspective. So now we are looking at all kindergartners in White Bear Lake area schools at all of our elementaries and how they did fall versus spring. Again, this is not necessarily a new graph to this
040board. I think we looked at this in August, but we're expanding what we wanna look at. We don't wanna just know what a subgroups are doing. We wanna know how all of our students are doing. So attending to all the same goal of that 75% of kindergartners entering being at low risk, but looking at it in different ways. So from our littlest to our oldest, now we're gonna look at some high school data as it pertains to these specific goals. So in this one we're looking at the students over the course of four years of their high school enrollment and how many career or college ready credits they've accumulated. And this metric was defined previously per the goal. So you can see that indicated on the right of the screen. So it's not just advanced
041coursework or college board AP courses or PSEO, it's a wider variety, a wider net for that career and college readiness. And specifically to the graduating class at the bottom. So we see the class of 2023, the class of 2024. And then our most recent graduating class, we have more students leaving with 12 or more college credits, which is I think a huge celebration. So as you can see, our goal is 40% for this graduating class. And if we continue that trajectory based on the data we have, we're hoping to achieve that goal. So looking at our data specific by two subgroups per one of our goals. So our Latinx and Black student cohort, that same idea. So we looked at all of our students and now we're looking at two of our subcategories for our
042race and ethnicity. There are two things I want you to notice on this graph is the bottom numbers above the gray bars, that's the total enrollment for that graduating class. So it is a little bit of a stark number to see a 0%, but I do wanna call attention that those two students of course matter. But having only that small subgroup of two really changes that percentage significantly. So the orange line is the percentage of graduating students from last year in that racial and ethnicity category. So I just wanna pause for a second there. So again, our goal is by June, 2026, but we're just giving an update for the last year. So in that same thread, so looking at, those same two student groups, excuse me, the Latinx and Black students within those cohort
043categories, what percent of those students are leaving with 12 or more college classes or credits? Excuse me. And so you can see over time there has been a slight increase. And at last year our seniors that graduated in these two populations, 20% of them had 12 or more college credits. So slight shift against focusing more at the high school and upper grades here with graduation. So one of the goals was around the high school's four year graduation rate. And MDE has a pretty specific way that they calculate that. And because of that typically isn't really sent until February, sometimes March of the following year. So we don't have the data for MDE for 2025 yet, but we will get that soon. So you'll see that's why we only have up until 2024 on this particular
044graph. The orange is gonna be our White Bear Lake area high school graduation rate. And then for reference we have the Minnesota State average graduation rate. So this goal is to have that increase to 98% by June, 2026. So again, we'll have those two data points coming in the future. And one caveat to go into this slide is students who don't graduate in four years based on the, when they started ninth grade. So that is when their start time is. There could be a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's an IEP goal for that student to have a little bit more time. Sometimes it's a language acquisition if they're still learning English. And so that's why MDL also has a seven year graduation rate. So that is also included into our district goals. So this one's
045looking at a broader district and you can see that same orange is the White Bear Lake area district. And then the state average is in gray. So another pretty detailed graph. So we'll go through this one as well. So on the bottom specific we can see two goals overlap with this particular graph. So we're looking at our subgroup of American Indian students. We're looking at the cohort who graduated. So you can see for 2019, which is the start of the graph, we had six students identified in that cohort based on their enrollment summary. And then 2020 we had zero within that cohort. So that is why you are not gonna see a percentage for White Bear Lake specifically in the orange for that second year of 2020. So give a couple of minutes to look
046at that. But just really keeping in mind when you have such a small cohort such as two, 100% is something absolutely to celebrate. But it does look a little bit more fluctuating than like the state average, which has a larger enrollment. And now we're going back, hopping back to our elementaries. So one of the specific goals was around one of our elementaries, Willow Lane, third grade in particular. So we're looking at a different test than we've looked at thus far tonight. The MCA reading assessment. And the goal was to see an increase from 2022 to this coming spring 2026. So you're gonna see the darker orange is Willow Lane, third grade MCA reading, the lighter orange is White Bear Lake Area schools, third grade reading. And then the gray is the state again specific to
047third grade MCA reading. - [Alison] And you may be wondering why specifically Willow Lane is included. And that is because their demographics exceed our district demographics for protected class by 20%. And so we're required to have goals specifically for Willow Lane for our achievement and integration. - And then one of the last things we're gonna look at tonight on this presentation is about specific to Willow Lane is some leadership skills and confidence. So you can see a little bit of a narrative around this, but really students taking this pre and post survey and thinking about how they are growing and developing as leaders within that year. So fifth grade, I believe that this was presented on previously as well last year had a special project that they had some collaboration with another of our elementary
048schools, Matoska International. And they created a lot of awareness and problem solving using skills in their class, using their math and science and literacy as well to weaving that in. And so from that particular program we did see 100% of students feel an increase in that ability or that skill, that leadership skill. - [Alison] Great. So we're ready to take questions. I'm gonna invite up two other members of our team, Jen Babish, who you know, the director of Teaching and Learning and Brenton Shavers who you also know our Director of Educational Equity and Achievement. - [Arcand] All right, well. - Okay. - [Arcand] Thank you. Do we have some questions? - I just wanted to mention that I did invite the principal of Willow Lane. She had a family matter, so she's not able to
049be here. We'll be able to answer questions as best as we can, but if there's something specific we might need to include her outside of the meeting. - Questions you have, Ms. Streiff Oji. - Thank you for sharing this information. And it's exciting to see the grad rate and how well we're doing there. I'm looking specifically at Willow Lane's third grade reading MCA scores and the goal to get them to 68%. And just wondering what you're finding with the sort of kinda steady achievement level rate and not moving. Do we know what one, you know, what is the data? This is what the data tells is about third grade at Willow Lane. - Yep. - How are we responding to that data at the district or as a district and as a site, can you
050speak to that? - Yeah, I can. And then I'll have Disa kind of help with some other data that we, 'cause we too are looking at that. We're partnering with Jen Sexauer. She's a brand new principal at Willow Lane. And really thinking about what systems are there. And so as we presented on our literacy and thinking about our new curriculum, what is some of those root cause, 'cause we are seeing growth in kindergarten that we're really excited about. We're working with first grade, second grade, third grade. And so how do we really dive in and think about how are they aligned to our guaranteed and viable curriculum? How are we supporting instruction in the class? We have instructional coaches that are helping, looking at the interventions and kind of how do we wrap around those
051supports around students. And then finally really coming in around what other things might be needed around systems at the school. So you think about how do we support student discipline, how do we support student attendance and those things. So it's a really strong partnership with instructional coaches, me the principal, really looking at all of that. What we are excited about, and I'm gonna have Disa explain that, but last year's fifth grade class had 60% of students meet or exceed the MCA's. And so really looking at how can we also build on the strengths that we're seeing? And so how can those teachers collaborate together, so. - Yeah, and really thinking about multiple points of data, right? Like that's a really important question. And thinking about, so we have FastBridge, which we measure for literacy and
052math. So context, right? It's a different assessment. It's not just for our state standards, but it is for overall reading skills, right? Like the comprehension, the fluency. So we are getting measures that then they can take and utilize. So in particular, for third grade last year at the same testing window, our third grade students at Willow, were at 43% low risk. Again, a different classification. So we could say meet or exceeds kind of is the comparable. And you know, we had 33 on the MCA, so slight difference, but there is some conversation there, right? Like, okay, so, if our students are performing higher on one assessment, they have the skills, so how are we gonna transfer that? MCA is a longer test, it has maybe some different platform integration, interfaces, excuse me. So helping them
053with that as well. But as Dr. Gillespie said, we had 60% of our fifth graders at Willow meet or exceed on the MCA and their previous year is a fourth grade cohort. They were at 31%. So there are things working that we can replicate. - Thank you. I did, after looking at this data, take a little bit of a data dive on the MDE website to look at literacy at Willow and White Bear and statewide and it is, there are some promising things there that I did see and that, that actually at Willow they were outperforming the state and in some instances the district with their students that are on free and reduced lunch, which is a large population that they have there, Black and African American and our White students and our ELL students.
054So just harnessing what's happening there and how do we really just hone in on. - Yeah. One thing I neglected to mention as well in terms of support, the principal, Jen, is also partnering closely with Minnesota Department of Education and we have someone assigned to Willow to help and really another voice and another part of the team to really say how do we build on the strengths we see, but dive into areas that we're not yet seeing the movement that we need to for our students. - And that partnership that's a free resource that's- - Yeah. Yeah. - They're doing a lot of work statewide, so thank you. - Okay. Further discussion. Yes. - Question. Going back to the kindergarten slides, how many, what percentage of our kindergartners attend our White Bear Lake area school
055preschool? - I'll have to give you that number soon. I have an estimate, but I don't wanna say it unless I'm confident. - Yeah, yeah. Maybe like half or less or you don't know. That's okay. Well, I'll wait and you can send it. - Yes. I will get you the exact percentage, yes, soon. - Thank you. Thank you - Mr. Skaar. - Thank you. You mentioned that we have a new principal at Willow Lane. So do we have, is our turnover higher at Willow Lane with teachers and principals versus other schools in the district? - That's a really good question. I don't know the answer to it. And anecdotally, I don't believe so. This is, our previous principal was in the district for a long time. - Okay. - The principal before that was, but
056we obviously wanna make sure we have steady leadership, so we are really leaning in and supporting. - Oh, thank you. The other thing I noticed in the presentation that you talked about being college ready versus trades ready, because I know we're trying with this district to, you know, push kids, not push 'em, but the college and there's an alternative where you can make a good living through the trades. So how does that reconcile with your presentation? - Yeah, you want me to go? Yeah. - That's fine. - Yeah, that'd be great. I think last time when I talked about the new course proposals, it might just be the, one of the first slides when we talk about how do we define college and career readiness. And that was our work when we had a partnership
057with the Greater Twin Cities United Way. And that's when we kicked off our career pathways and then also did the 12 credits by 12th grade. And so as you'll see over the last couple years with our career pathways courses, we have looked to try to do dual enrollment with our colleges and articulated credit, for example, with St. Paul College. And so we think about any new courses, looking at both our career pathways programming and all the different pathways that we have, how are we aligning those courses with college credit? So then students have those choices if they wanna take more of that career pathways course or a more, you know, math, science, language arts, college and the school AP course. - So really it's more of a naming convention. When you say college credits, you
058mean college and also trade credit, right? - Yes. - Okay, so I get it. - Yep. - And the last question, I mean, given all the data that you shared with us, what are two things for you that's priority to move the ball forward? What would be one or two things that would really move the ball forward? - Are you asking me specifically? - Any of you? - Well I can tell you- - 'Cause I don't know the answer. (Alison laughing) - To me and what we're seeing is continuing to lean into our literacy work the way we have been. And really the more we get our kindergarten, first grade, the lowest risk possible, we're going to see not only, you know, our literacy specifically for those grades increase, we're also gonna see students retire
059outcomes in middle school and high school. And so really thinking through that, the other piece is how do our teachers collaborate together? And so really this is a big job, everyone has different skills. So what are the structures we're putting together, 'cause the teams that are collaborating the most are seeing the greatest outcomes for our students in terms of student achievement measures, how they're feeling about school, all of those things. And so those two areas, we call 'em collaborative inquiry teams, you may have heard other districts call 'em professional learning communities or PLCs. Those two areas to me, really are guaranteed viable curriculum. And then how we're collaborating around data together. - Alright, thank you. - Ms. Ellison. - Thank you. I see that the goals here from 2023 to 2026. And so thinking ahead,
060what has the legislature, is it a similar requirement that they're gonna require another three year plan? And as you look toward 27 to 30, you know, because as I'm looking at some of these goals, I mean, our graduation rates are all already excellent and we should always be inching toward 100, right? But that seems to be an inching toward, whereas some of our other goals, it feels like we need to think kind of rethink where we're headed. So as you're looking at that next three years, how is this data gonna help you create those three year goals? - That's a really good question. So what we're talking about one, and you all have asked about that, how do we streamline and really talk about data that we can truly impact? And so one is aligning
061everyone because we now give the FastBridge k, early childhood really to 12th grade. So we're aligning around that about how do we get 80% of our students in each one of those grades at low risk, at least 80% as our initial goal. And so being able to better present on that, around these goals, we can use that. We're not trying at all to dismiss MCAs. We would still present those two, but they're lagging data. And so how to better align, as you've heard from principals, that's one area. Graduation rate is one way to determine college and career readiness. I think Mr. Skaar talked about a question that comes up frequently. How are we really getting kids ready for career and college? And so thinking about how can we make those goals a little bit clearer
062for people so they understand we absolutely are doing both things and that they're not, you know, this 12 credits is important, but is it a better way to get it? Chair Arcand has asked questions before. So those types of things are really thinking how we're much better aligned as a system. So how do we clearly communicate that to our community without a whole bunch of education jargon that can be frustrating. - [Ellison] Lots of acronyms. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah. And because I, as I see the slide where it says all students career and college ready, there is a bullet point that says articulated college credit classes like woodworking. So it would be helpful to see that. I also think, and this is not something that necessarily the whole board needs to see, but I
063would be interested, been on the board a long time, what were the three year goals before that? - Okay. Yep. - And the three year goals now and the three year goals moving ahead because we have made significant progress. So what is that significant progress and how does that help us look toward how we continue to get better? So. Thank you. - All right. Any other discussion? Any other questions? Yeah, go ahead. - Sorry, just one quick question on the graduation rates. Are those the, I'm just assuming those are the graduation rates, including tech and ALC and the entire district, 'cause I know sometimes we get 'em of the district without ALC and transition education center included and the numbers look differently. So I just wanna make sure the ones we've been presented tonight are
064all of our schools. - It really depends on the goal. So if the goal was district, the data was pulled for the district. But as you can see, I think this is being projected. This particular one was just the high school. - Yeah. - Just because of the wording of the goal. - Yeah, - Just I was, sorry, my clarification was just the like seven year graduation rate and the four year graduation rates. - The seven there specifically includes ALC and tech. - Yes. Thank you. - Thank you for asking that. - Any other questions? Thank you for your time. We appreciate you taking time to present to us. - Thank you. - We're now gonna go to discussion item D2. This is the first reading of school board policies 305, 306, 608 and 722.
065These policies listed in the packet will be coming back at December 8th agenda or another agenda if needed for a second reading. If there's any discussion or questions on any of the policies, give us the policy number on the page, which is located in the packet. - [Skaar] I have one. - [Arcand] Yes, Mr. Skaar. - [Skaar] It's on policy 305 where it talks about. - [Attendee] What, can we wait? - [Arcand] It would be page starting on 94. - [Skaar] Yes, thank you. Page 94, policy 305 where you're changing the name from school board to school district policy. So that to me as I let the chair and the vice chair as well as Wayne know that I sent a letter to MSBA regarding policy development. So I thought it'd be help. I have
066talked to him about it, but one of the concerns that I had was related to the policies and how they may undermine the authority of the board. - [Arcand] So do you have a specific question then to 305? - Yeah, I've got, that question is pertinent here. So is my conversation that I had with MSBA, the executive director as well as the general counsel. So if you would, I'd like to at least present some of the questions that I had because I may have a different point of view that I'd like to share. - [Arcand] Specifically to 305. - [Skaar] Specifically to 305. - [Arcand] Okay. - [Skaar] But also specifically to policy development in general and how it reconciles with the plain language of the statute. - [Arcand] What's that? - [Attendee] It's not
067on the agenda. - [Arcand] Well, if we could keep it just to 305. - [Skaar] It is on the agenda, I'm just focus on- - [Arcand] You're talking about policies. - [Skaar] Yes. - [Arcand] Right? - [Skaar] So I'm talking about relevant material that I've talked with MSBA that relates to that policy. - [Arcand] Okay. - [Skaar] And I don't see what- - [Arcand] So what questions do you have on 305 then? Go ahead. - [Skaar] Well, here are some questions that I asked them, first who develops the model policies? I found that out. I think there should be a committee that does it among the board members. But you know, that's probably not gonna happen. Is there a process to ensure that all board governance policies, including policy 209, which is the code of
068ethics policy, are reconciled- - [Arcand] Right now we're talking at 305. Point of order. I know, sorry, point of order. - [Skaar] It's the same thing. - [Arcand] So- - [Skaar] You didn't let me finish. If you let me finish then you can see the connection. - [Arcand] Thank you, sir. Go ahead. - [Skaar] Are reconciled with the explicit requirements of Minnesota statute 123 B09, subdivision eight as to board's authority and prevent undue delegation to others, thereby upholding the accountability and oversight by the board. It's germane to this particular policy. Is there a process to reconcile all policies including policy 209 with free speech guaranteed under the United States Constitution? And how does that apply to school board members in Minnesota That may not be as germane to that. But then how does policy 209
069work through the superintendent? Not over or around - [Arcand] Can we look at just 305 for this. This is pertinent. - How do you reconcile that with the superintendent who directly reports to the board, not the reverse. So those were the questions. So the report back from the MSBA executive director as well as their general counsel, they were very gracious with their time. They're gonna look at some of the concerns that I raised in terms of how policies reconcile and should not undermine the authority of the board. - Okay. - That's it. - I have one question that I'm gonna bring up. I know we don't jump in, but I am, the policy recommendations by MSBA are not carte blanche. We just hand it to it. We take policies and Dr. K, if I could
070ask you, we don't just approve 'em, we work through our legal counsel and we look at it and make sure it fits our district, - Right, yep. We often do work with our legal counsel and we also have a policy committee. Yep. - Okay. - And then how often are we bringing policies to the committee to update? - Monthly. And so we're constantly looking at updating our policies, making sure they stay current and fresh. What is out there? So that was my question. Alright. I will pull myself off the table. And other questions? I saw hands, Ms. Daniels, - Are there two board members on the policy committee? Correct? - I believe we have two. - Yeah. - And to really understand that the policy committee is not a decision making committee. They look at
071it and they talk about it, but the decision comes here, they can make recommendations, but they cannot make decisions on it. And so that has to be done by the board. Yes. - Can I ask the people that are on the policy committee, why for 305, the switch was from school board to school district. So page 95, general statement of policy section two, subsection A and- - Was that an MSBA recommendation, Rachel? Yeah. - Most of those recommendations are to keep up with state statute. When statutes change, - Mr. Skaar. - There's three categories of policy. One is they're legally, you have to do it like anti-bullying. The second category is you should do it, but you don't have to do it. And the third one is, hey, these are best practices and like policy
072209 follows into best practice, which I commented that it's not a best practice. Okay. - Okay, so we're still on 305 or any of the others? Any questions or concerns or comments? - I just, - Ms. Oji. - Would like to, I just wanna be very clear that there is a policy committee that meets regularly. You said it but it was stated that there wasn't one and it wasn't gonna happen. And it is and it does and has been in place for a long time. - And it includes board members. - Yep. - Wait, can I just make a correction? I didn't imply that there wasn't a policy committee. I said there wasn't one at the MSBA level. - Okay. - However, our policy committee isn't subject to open meeting laws. I've never been invited
073to it. I don't know if the public's invited to it, but that's where all the sausage making. - It's not a decision making committee that has to- - I get that. But there's a lot of value in understanding people's perspectives on it. - Okay. So once again, we are looking at 305, 306, 608 and 722. Any questions or concerns about any of those policies? Okay, hearing none, this will come back until December meeting to approve. If I could go to operational item E1 action on the 2026, 27 course proposals. Ms. Babish. - Good evening Chair Arcand, members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak at the October 27th work study session, the high school admin team led by Principal Reetz and associate Principal Carrie Barth and some of our teacher leaders, we presented the secondary course proposals
074for the 26th, 27 school year. We included the presentation from the 27th in the board packet tonight, I'm just gonna give you some quick highlights and then ask for a recommendation. Already stated, We just talked about how our new course proposal, we really look to see how it's aligned with our CACR goals and then also how it aligns with the high school core values as Principal Reetz talked about. And so this first section, we went through our new course proposals and we really highlighted our English language arts and gave you a good picture of the offerings that we currently offer in ninth grade and then in 10th grade and then in asterisk would indicate any new courses that we are proposing. And then we went to 11th and 12th grade to also give you the
075breadth of courses that are available for students to choose. And then any new courses there. And then our electives and you can see all those new courses that we are proposing tonight. Then we went and just talked about pretty much almost every other content area had some new course proposals. And if you remember, this is our first year in the trimester schedule. And so we're really excited about all of these offerings. The second section was really about course name changes or grade level changes. And so we had many departments make just very minor changes, different titles of courses and you know, adding a one after a two if there was a sequence of courses that we were looking to add. And then finally we had the request to remove courses. And generally the rationale for
076this is students aren't enrolling in them anymore. And so we wanna stay current and relevant to our student body. And so you'll see that there are course removals and then the rationale for them. I do wanna point out at the 27th presentation, the AP chemistry for course removal was left out. So we're adding that back tonight. And the rationale for that is it hasn't run in three years. And also this is a sequence of courses. So the prerequisite is you need to take a chemistry course first and many of our students take honors chemistry and then choose to maybe take an AP physics or something else their senior year. So that's the rationale for that additional course that didn't get added before. So I would like to make a recommendation to approve the recommended secondary
077new course proposals, course name or grade level changes and course removals for the 26th, 27th school year as presented at the 27th school work study session. - Thank you. So we have before us the recommended action to approve the recommended secretary new course proposals, course name or grade level changes and course removals for the 26th, 27th school year as it was presented. Do we have a motion? - It's moved. - Okay, Ms. Thompson and a second. - Second. - Second by Ms. Daniels. Any discussion? Yes, Ms. Beloyed? - I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure that I understood. So we're removing AP chem because in order to take that class you would've already had to have taken a chemistry class? - Correct? Yes. So it hasn't run, we definitely need to re-look at this
078because we know that there's some kids that do wanna take a more advanced course in chemistry, but for whatever reason they, you know, students are choosing maybe physics or another AP course that senior year, 'cause this right now is only for 12th graders and we just haven't been able to see the enrollment. - I'm just surprised that's a prerequisite. - Yeah. - From taking AP chemistry, 'cause that's not a prerequisite for AP- - Right. - Bio. - Yeah. - Or it's not even for physics, is it? I mean, you don't have to have taken a physics class order to take AP physics. - Yeah, I think it's because where it falls in the senior year, it's tricky 'cause they only can take it as a senior. But yeah, we definitely need to look at it.
079- Chemistry is taken as a CIS potentially though, correct? We offer that, right? - We're looking into that, yes. - That I would highly encourage, - Yes. - The CIS, yes. - Okay. - Thank you. - Yep. - Any other questions? - I have one question. The system accountability committee reviews all of this, which is composed of how many parents? - Yep. So we have parents from each school. - So just one parent is what I heard. - Yeah. I mean, at least one parent from each school. We actually fill up this room quite, (laughs) it's quite full with all the parents and the principals that attend. Yes. - Do you think that's sufficient to get input from parents by selecting just one from a school? Or is there other ways that you could look
080at getting input? - Yeah, we- - Have you looked at other ways? - Yeah, we actually have a series of different things that we do in order to get input. So we do take it to systems accountability. Absolutely. We also take it to our student advisory. Dr. Kazmierczak has like a student panel that we take and ask for student feedback. And then I know Principal Reetz did multiple surveys of students to just see what courses are relevant or would you wanna take this course. And we did that with all the language arts courses as well. So we try to get multiple contacts for, you know, with students, parents, teachers to be able to come up with the courses that are gonna be relevant that kids are gonna wanna take. - Yeah. I guess my only
081comment is, you know, there's courses that kids, you know, want to take versus courses that they should take. Right. So we kind of need to do a little bit of a balance with that. Right. - Yeah. And I think the best way that we do do that is 'cause we have our Minnesota State standards. - Sure. - So there are standards that are required that kids learn and courses that they take. And then we also have our graduation requirements. - Yep, thanks for that clarification. - Yep. - I have a quick question. I just need clarification. Most of the courses that we're inactivating, those are being inactivated because students are not enrolling in them. - Correct. - And we can't require them to take 'em. - Correct. And so if we don't have enough students
082to take the course, we can't run it. Right. It just, we can't have unfortunately five students in one course. But I know the administration does whatever they can. If there's kids that really have an interest, is there an independent study? Is there an online course that we could offer? Counselors also do a really great job of trying to meet the needs of all the students. - Thank you. Ms. Daniels. - Point of clarification for me is, did you say there was a parent from every school? So when you say every school, you mean every elementary school, middle school, school and high school. So there isn't just one person- - It's just, yes. - Not one parent on the committee. It's all of those parents. So they have input as their child. - Correct. - Comes
083in. - Yes. - So we get input all grade levels. - I was confused by Mr. Skaar's comment. I thought he meant there was only one and I thought I knew better than that. But I'm glad- - No I meant by school. - I understand now. - Yeah. - That you meant the high school. I meant the whole committee - One per school. - Right, thank you. - Okay, Ms. Thompson, do you have a question? - Well, just, our systems accountability committees are guided by state statute. - Correct. - And so we have to have what the state statute says as a population of our community to represent us. And so we're following the state statute guidelines. - Absolutely, yes. - And it's a pretty robust requirement of what you have to have at the
084committee meetings to meet that statute. - Yes, you're right. - Thank you. - Just one point. - Mr. Skaar. - I read the statute as well as our policy and it doesn't have any really, there's really no requirements on the composition as such in terms of the numbers and so forth. So it's quite loose. - Okay, thank you. Any further? All right, well this will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [Group] Aye. - All opposed? Okay, the motion. (gavel thudding) Good luck on those classes. - Thank you. - Are we now on E2 action on the 26, 27 and 27, 28 calendars? Dr. Gillespie. - Chair and members of the board, I as you know, come every year to present two calendars to you. One the upcoming school year with all
085details finalized and then two school years out. We put as many dates as we can to be clear with families. But we still, I'll talk specifically some days we don't place every single professional development day if we're not certain, 'cause we try to minimize the changes that will happen as we present to the public. However, sometimes there are changes. So I presented in more detail at the work study session, but I wanted to go over the general recommendation in terms of the largest change. The largest change for 26, 27 and 27, 28 is that we're asking, the recommendation we have is that the school year start before Labor Day. And the greatest reasons for that are the four instructional days before Labor Day. So we still would have the Friday off before that Labor Day
086holiday that families are used to, would allow us to make sure that the school year one ends earlier, which is a big deal for some of our extended day programming. It also, it's what we're used to in terms of getting out as as early as possible in June. And so that would be June 4th and June 2nd in those respective years versus mid-June. Additionally, that allows us more instructional time before state testing, which as you know, is important. One of the greatest benefits as I looked with our committee and got feedback from people was by starting it has better alignment for those trimester breaks. So for example, around, it's the same as this year really, you know, trimester one will end the Tuesday before the Thanksgiving break. You come back, students will come back the
087following Tuesday 'cause there's a work day for teachers to do grades. If we didn't have those four days before Labor Day, it would cause another break. Maybe a week into December because of the way we balance instructional days consistently that we try. Additionally, I already mentioned better scheduling for the extended school year. The part that I think is also important is it really is only one day difference from this school year. It feels different because Labor Day goes a week later, those next two years I think. And then I also wanted to highlight that length of summer is similar. So the past summers we've had 11 weeks for families, staff, students that enjoy that summer break our best weather in Minnesota. It continues those next two years at 11 weeks. It doesn't shorten any of
088those summers. Then I included our detailed 26, 27. So these are all the instructional days placed all of our breaks, things like that. And 27, 28, it's almost all complete. But I'm holding back on two days because we wanna do some, see how professional development days align and have a little bit more time with our trimester schedule before I place those two days. So next year at this time I would have the finalized 27, 28 for you. So you have a recommendation before you that we're asking you to approve the 26, 27 and 27, 28 calendars as presented. - [Arcand] Can I get a motion to approve the 26, 27. 27, 28 school years as presented. - So moved. - By Ms. Ellison. Do I second? - Second. - Second by Beloyed. Any discussion and
089questions. Ms. Streiff Oji. - I don't remember if we asked this last time you brought this forward, but have we gotten any parent input on the starting before Labor Day? - I did. We did two different ways. One, I brought it to systems accountability, but we did that last year because we didn't know what the legislature was going to do. We were also surveying our community. And so when we surveyed the community, we added another question. So it was actually went out to community members and families to gauge how people felt about starting before Labor Day. The general opposition, like strong opposition was about a third. I don't have the numbers written down right now. And then, you know, some people, 60% of community were in favor and then parents was kind of in the
090middle. I know the state fair also asked that question and it kind of falls into thirds third strongly support, third strongly opposed. And then the middle, which is pretty typical. I did mention that for a calendar it's hard to get people to agree, but there wasn't a ton of strong opposition. - And how many parents are on the calendar committee? Are there parents on? - No, that's part of the system. The facility that Mr. Skaar that you just discussed. - Okay, okay. Thank you - Ms. Beloyed. - Were you done, I'm sorry. - I am done. - Yeah. Given that I saw snow yesterday, can you remind me, how many days do we have built into the schedule for snow days? - We don't actually build days in. There's a certain number of hours we
091need to have. - And how many is that? - Construction, I. - Thousand? - Depends on the grade level. - Yeah. - So secondary has the most 1,020. - I'm sorry, say that again. - 1020 hours. Andy, I think I'm grabbing onto the right number. Yeah, it's right 1,020. And so we have a cushion in there but that- - We usually don't get too nervous that to two or three days after that. Then, we may run into some issues. Yeah. But we don't specifically build in snow days. We just have a minimum number of hours required. We have to make sure we need- - I'm hoping by asking this now we won't need them. So it's gonna build that. - It's a lot of strategy that people employ around snow days. - It's worked before.
092So let's see if it works this time. - Really the minimum is set based on making sure we can get full funding. But we have school longer than that. So we have a big question in there. Only one year, whatever, a couple years ago we got a little close to that, yep. - Alright, thank you. - Other questions? Okay, this will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [Group] Aye. - Opposed same sign. Motion passes that we've approved those calendars, right? Now we're gonna move on to E2. The action on the bid for the White Bear Lake Area High School roof replacement project. Ms. Johnson. - Good evening. The bid for the high school roof replacement was originally approved by the board at the April 14th meeting, but roofing supplies were affected
093by the tariffs and so shortly after that was approved in April, the tariffs were reduced and we thought it would be prudent to rebid that project and see if we could get a lower rate. By the time the bid window closed, there was another increase in the tariffs. And so the savings were less than we had hoped, but they did come in a little bit lower than the original bid. So the second round of bids had four bidders just as the first round Peterson was the winning bidder at $347,735. This is $5,665 lower than their April bid of $353,400. So the recommended action is to accept the overall bid for the White Bear Lake Area High School roof replacement project as presented to Peterson Brothers Roofing and the amount of $347,735. - [Arcand] All right,
094we have a recommended action. Can I get a motion? - [Beloyed] So moved. - [Arcand] Okay, Ms. Beloyed, do I have second? - [Thompson] Second. - Second by Ms. Thompson. Okay. Discussion? Any questions? Yes, Ms. Beloyed? - So if the tariffs go back down and if we don't vote on this tonight, could we? I'm kidding. - Okay. Other Mr. Skaar. - This was not included in the original construction budget for the under the bond referendum, is that right? This is LTFM. - This is part of our LTFM plan. - LTFM- - Yes. - Which was separate from the 300, what was it? 328 plus the- - 326. - Right 326 plus the LTFM that was applied to the project. - Correct. - Made it close to 400 million. So is that part of that 400
095million or is this separate? Is this part of the LTFM? That was in the construction budget plus. So it would be the referendum plus the LTFM. Is this in it? - I'd have to check to tell you for sure which bucket. I can tell you it's part of our LTFM plan. That LTFM plan that comes to the board each year encompasses both buckets together. So I don't recall like the bonded bucket and the annual allocation. I don't recall exactly which this particular project was into. - Okay. - Alright. And I'm gonna make an assumption that this is for the roof on the older part. It's not for the new construction. - Correct. - Just to be clear. - That's Yes. That's a safe assumption. - Okay. Any other questions? Oh, this will be then a
096roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Daniels. - Aye. - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed. - Aye. - And it passes. Thank you. Now we're gonna go down to E4. Action on school board policies, 301, 302, 303, 422 and 423. Can I get a motion to approve these policies? And once again, we'll do 'em in a group altogether. Can I get a motion to approve these policies? Okay, by Daniels a second. - [Thompson] Second - Thompson. All right. Discussion. And then if you have a question, can you tell us the policy number and the page that it's on? And it looks like we start on page 136 just for reference. Any discussion? Okay.
097And hearing none, this will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [Group] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Okay, now it's time for our board forum. Board forum is an opportunity for board members to update the school board and the public on committee work in which they have engaged in their official capacity as a board member and create awareness of upcoming district and partnership events. Are there any board members that would like to share? - I have one note. - Okay. - Mr. Skaar had his hand up first. - Well she, Ms. Daniels can go ahead. - Oh, I just had a very little, I had a fun little opportunity and I just wanna say I went to a scout meeting at Vadnais Heights Elementary. They were learning about voting and
098elections and so they invited me as a guest speaker to talk about being elected as a school board member. And I had the best questions. Of course, most of what they asked about, we don't really have control over. They were great questions. So they were very curious group of students and girls and boys and mostly fourth graders. So that was a lot of fun. I just have to say we have some great kids with great imaginations. - Okay, Mr. Skaar, did you have something to share? - Yeah, I just wanted to let you know, I shared a letter with the board members regarding a need for an operational audit based upon performance over the last five years in the audit, which is 13 deficiencies, which is high even according to our own auditor. And also
099a pattern safety rating, 25% worse than a similarly situated organization. Confusion on board members. I mean, I'm still getting, you know, vector training requirements or enrollment. It seems like staff doesn't understand the difference between the governing body and staff. So I think we should make some kind of a distinction there. And there are a few other things. - So do you have any other things to share about committees or anything? - No, I just wanted to- - Okay. - Just explain the letter. - Okay. - That's all. - Thank you. Any other board forum? Okay, we are entering the portion of the meeting G, labor negotiations. This portion of the meeting may be closed to consider strategy for labor negotiations, including negotiation strategies and developments or discussions. And review the labor negotiation proposals conduct pursuant
100to Minnesota statute 179A.01 to 179A.25. Can I get a motion to go into closed session? - [Ellison] So. - [Arcand] I heard Ms. Ellison, can I get a second? - [Thompson] Second. - [Arcand] Second by Ms. Thompson. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, this will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [Group] Aye. Opposed same sign. (gavel thudding) Motion passes. We are in close session.