001- I now call this meeting of the School Board of Independent School District. Sorry. I now call this meeting of the School Board of Independent School District 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Ellison? - Here. - Skaar. - Here. - Streiff Oji. - Here. - Thompson. - Here. - Arcand. - Here. - Daniels is here. - Okay. Can you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? - [All] 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? - So moved. - Okay, Thompson. Is there a second? - Second. - Second by Ellison. Any further discussion?
002Okay. Hearing none. This will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. Motion passes. We also have before us a consent agenda. This contains various business items that come to us monthly, including donations. We are truly grateful for the support that the community shows us each month to our staff and students. They wanna thank everybody who has contributed. Can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda? - So moved. And a second. - Second. So was moved by Ellison, seconded by you. Okay. All right, do we have any discussion? Mr. Skaar, I believe you had some questions. - Right. I have questions. Thank you. I have questions on the payment of invoice report. So I'm assuming that this report is designed around public transparency and for
003the board's benefit. Is that correct? This report? - [Representative] Yes, this is a list of all of the payments that we've made as a school district since the last board meeting. - So it's designed to, it's designed to be transparent to the public? - Yes. - And for the board. Okay, thanks. So on that report you have, it's organized in a way, just so that I know, by check numbers, right? So then it's- - [Representative] Check numbers are payment numbers, yes. - Payment. And you have different checks for different things. - [Representative] Uh-huh. - So for a V check, the check type B, what is that for? - [Representative] That would be a void. - Pardon me? - a void. - So that's a voided check. - Mm-hm. - So an R is- - [Representative]
004A regular check. - I would not have guessed some of these. A C? - [Representative] So Cs are kind of strange. They're were if we have multiple invoices to an entity, it prepares a remittance advice to indicate like exactly which invoices are paid. So like Amazon would be a common one where we pay many invoices and it takes up many check stubs, essentially. So it's like, kind of like a canceled check essentially, I think maybe is what the C stands for. Because it has many invoice numbers on it. - I see. That one I kind of figured because you had all those zeros and then at the end you have a number. And then what is it paid for? - [Representative] ACH checks. - Oh. - [Representative] Or ACH payments. - And there's a unique
005check number sequence that you, so the check numbers, like if you go down to, let me see here. So the 999 series of checks. Why are those different? - [Representative] So those are- - [Dan] Thank you. Appreciate it. - [Representative] Those are set up like in our system, like as a wire payment essentially, or like ACH transaction that's automatically pulled from our accounts. So we initiate all of the top checks where it's like starting with a 147. Those are paper checks that get issued. The 999 checks are amounts that are automatically pulled. So like we might go out to the IRS, for example, and we initiate the payment on that way and then it pulls it from a bank account versus us pushing it out. And then if you go to like the '25, '26
006checks, those are ACH payments that we push out. So we got a paper invoice, we're cutting a check, an ACH payment, that we're pushing out versus the entity pulling it from our account. - I see. I understand. Thank you. So how would I understand, like, capital expenditure checks versus other checks or consultant and legal fee checks versus capital checks or other transportation checks, things like that? How can I tell by looking at this report? - [Representative] This report won't show you that. So this report is just the listing of checks that needs to get approved by the school board. That would be a different type of report that we'd have to create. - Okay. It would seem to me that that would be more helpful at least for the board, for the public if we
007had it categorized by expenses categories. I also saw that there were several solar leasing and solar expenses. And I know that we have a turnkey project with iDEAL Solar. However, we had expenses to solar winds, green to solar, leasing and anchor solar. What are those for? - So those are all related to our solar projects. The iDEAL Energies is the vendor that we use. The way that those solar projects work is they have like a separate entity with a separate tax ID based on the year of the solar lease. And so some of the early, I believe some of the early ones were actually, like, their name to the IRS was anchor. So it really is ideal. It's just we have to pay what the IRS is expecting. - Yeah, that makes sense. We had
008fees to District 916. One was 87,448, another one was 43,056. And then I saw a credit for that same amount, 43,056 and 101,414. Are those like annual fees that we pay to District 916? - [Representative] Yeah, we work with 916 on a variety of items. And I can't speak specific to this particular, you know, invoice. I'd have to go and pull it. But we contract with them for different staffing services, largely related to special services. - I understand. - Yep. - Okay. There was a check to Watson Consulting Group. Does that ring a bell? - Mm-hm. - Do you know what that's- - [Representative] That's who we used, that was assisting our transportation RFP. So for our bus services. - So when I looked up Watson Consulting Group, it looks like they did consulting around
009diversity, equity inclusion. - [Representative] No. Nope. Nope. - That's not the right one. - No. - So I looked up the wrong one? - Correct. Yep. - Okay. - [Representative] I would imagine you can't really, this is just kind of a one man show, so I imagine he doesn't even really have a website. - Oh, I see. Thank you. - [Representative] Yep. - I also noticed that there was cost to or invoices from Bright Stone Care. Does that ring a bell? - [Representative] No, not Bright Stone. - Yeah, I think it was Bright Stone. - [Representative] It's not coming up if I search it. - BrightStar. Sorry. Thank you. - I don't know- - It looked like it was like medical care, medical related cost. And I was just thinking- - Is it yours? -
010Wayne, when I asked you about that, about the clinic, you mentioned that that was pretty much, we had no cost associated with that. That was something that was reimbursed to us. Does that ring a bell? - It could be something with our senior center. It was- - Oh, okay. - You know, at $2,000, I don't get that granular in a lot of our invoices. - Okay. There there was one that I couldn't find, which was local LLC for $7,500. It's on page 15. - [Representative] Yeah, I don't know. I'd have to, I'd have to look. - I could not find that one on the, I couldn't find that one. - Like if you just Google it, you mean? - Pardon me? - Like you just Googled that term, Local LLC. - Yeah, I couldn't find
011them at all. - [Representative] Yeah, but you know, we have to pay the name that's registered with the IRS. And so very often a business will be doing business as White Bear Lake Area Schools but then if you would pay us, you pay us as ISC 624. You know what I mean? And so it doesn't surprise me that some of these names, if you Google them, you're not gonna find anything because that's simply their like registered IRS name. - So for this one, we don't know exactly what that was for. - I mean, yes, we certainly do, but it doesn't surprise me that if you Google the vendor name that you won't necessarily get a hit. - [Mr Skaar] So what was that one for? Do you know offhand? - Well, I don't know off
012the top of my head, but I can tell you. - Okay. Well, I don't wanna, you know what, I don't want to blindside you on some of these smaller ones. It's more of some of these larger ones. There was also one for 91,998 to Renaissance, which I couldn't find anywhere. Does that ring a bell? - That's a curriculum. That's a curriculum company. - Okay. And then Live Nation Worldwide. Do you know what that one was? - [Representative] Is that her Facebook ads? - It looked like something for ticketing or entertainment. - Yeah, well, it certainly wouldn't... Live Nation is used by a lot of different companies. So it could be, you know, somebody attended a conference and they register through Live Nation. That would, I mean, that would be my guess. We're not like in
013the, we're probably not going to a concert, would be my guess. But without a, you know, I'd have to look it. - Okay. Well, thank you. - Oh, no, you know what it is? I can tell you what it is. It's the entity that, that we're doing prom through, they own the rental center. - Oh, I see. I figured it was event related. I was just, I wanted to figure out what exactly it was for. Also, I noticed that we write, this is kind of nitpicky, so we write, but you have to realize, you know, once you're an auditor, you're always an auditor. So we write checks to the IRS. And you know, with all the changes going with the IRS, should we standardize when we write something to the US government, like Department of
014Treasury? - Those are the items that are automatically pulled from our account. So they're set up as that in our system. - So that's how it's set up. - But it's a, yeah, an ACH that pulls out, so it doesn't matter. - Okay. I didn't have any other ones. Thank you for answering the questions. And I would like them, I would like you guys to consider, you know, making it easier to read from a board perspective and from a public perspective to give more context into what these are, maybe provide, you know, whether it's a capital expenditure, whether it's an expense, whether it's legal fees, consulting fees. I would ask you to consider that 'cause it'd be super helpful when I'm reviewing these. And I didn't mean to put you on the spot, but you
015did really well. Thank you very much for answering my questions. - All right. Thank you. We still have the motion on the table. I also wanna mention that if you look over this, you can always, you know, send her an email or send Wayne something if you have questions too. If we want answers, you can always ask before the meeting if you'd like. - I've done that. Thank you. - Okay. Just trying to make it easier for everybody. - Yeah, I know. - Okay. So before us we have a agenda. We have a motion to approve the consent agenda. Any further discussion? Hearing none, this will be a roll call vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison. - Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. -
016Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels, aye. - Okay. Motion carried. Now we have our consent agenda. We had nobody sign up for public forum tonight, so we have no public forum. So we're gonna go right on to C1: Superintendents report. Dr. Kazmierczak. - Right, thank you, Chair Arcand, members of the board. We are excited to welcome students back for the '25-'26 school year. Very soon. Families can find school supply lists, beginning of the school year events and district calendars on the back to school page of the district's website. As we prepare for the new school year, we ask families to take a moment to log into Parent View and complete the annual family update. This is essential to provide schools with accurate and up-to-date information for every student. And please complete the application for
017educational benefits linked on the back to school and nutrition services pages of our website for the opportunity to qualify for discounts on sports and activity fees, advanced placement test registration, college applications, and more. Paper applications can be requested by contacting the Nutrition Services Department. When we begin school in September, family, staff and community members are invited to share back to school pictures on Facebook using #BackToSchoolBears for a chance to be featured in a September community enewsletter. Photos may be emailed to [email protected]. And today is the start of the fall sports seasons, which I was able to kick off at midnight as a spectator at the football team's Midnight Madness Practice. District community members age 65 and older are invited to request a lifetime senior activity pass, which allows us free entry into home athletic contests.
018Find a news post on the district website to apply for a free pass or just call the superintendent's office and we'll get you set up. And the high school is pleased to announce that Taylor Tvedt has been chosen to serve as the new Assistant Activities Director. Taylor comes to White Bear from St. Paul Academy and Summit School programs where she has most recently held the positions of associate athletic director and sports information coordinator. We continue to hire for the '25-'26 school year. We need substitute teachers, bus drivers, para educators, extended day and nutrition services staff members and more. We offer competitive wages, flexible work hours, and a chance to make a difference for kids in our community. Find job postings on the website under employment. And as we prepare for the '25-'26 school year, we
019wanna remind families that we are currently accepting enrollment. Please get your child enrolled today so we can welcome them into the White Bear community and get them prepared for a terrific school year. Find information on the district website under enroll. - Thank you, Dr. Kazmierczak. Anybody have any questions? All right, thank you very much. We're gonna move on to something very exciting. It really is. The summer construction updates. Mr. Wall and Mr. Fernandez. - Page is here. It's drone footage. - I know. We're gonna get some facts here in a minute. (Jessica laughing) - Good evening, Chair Arcand, members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak. We've had a busy summer construction schedule as we have for quite a few summers now. And so we like to review the projects that we've been working on this summer.
020And Kevin Fernandez is our Director of Building Operations, who's been really working closely with all the projects. And then with us also is AJ Lillesve from Kraus-Anderson, who is representing all the work that Kraus-Anderson does for the school district. So AJ will walk us through the work that Kraus-Anderson's been overseeing for us this summer. - All right. So we've had three primary summer projects this go around here. Central Middle School, Phase 2 renovation; the Mariner Middle School LTFM HVAC improvements. - There we go. Turn that on. There you go. - There we go. And then third, the Sunrise Park Phase 2 renovations. So it's Central Middle School. Do a quick high level summary recap here. But the total bid day construction hard costs were just under $24 million. So through June of this year, that's
021an average of $844,438 a month. So that's a lot of scope going into one shot there. But the Phase 1 summer 2024, that included the gym edition completion, which is what that picture there is, also included some industrial tech areas, locker rooms, multipurpose band and choir, and then science as well. So if you can't remember what the phasing of that was, but little green square was the gymnasium storm shelter edition. And then all of the pink areas on level one and two there were that Phase 1 area is. The blue portions, which is on level one, two, and three is what we're currently got going on right now. So in that blue area, it includes the kitchen and cafeteria renovation, renovating the old district offices, art, fitness, counseling, and learning commons. So we got a
022couple pictures here. But some of the additional things that we got going on over there right now, inside the media center, they got ceiling grid installation underway and soffits being drywalled outside of that space. Inside the kitchen and cafeteria, they got equipment installation in progress, kitchen hood complete. Ansul system, which is the fire suppression system is installing this week. The tile work is wrapping up, coiling doors are being installed, and the cafeteria flooring has begun. In the unlikely event that you needed to store a bunch of lunch trays in that cafeteria, (panel laughing) you could store 5,703 of them, just in case you needed to know. (panel chuckling) So for the flooring on third floor and second floor, they've got that going down right now, as well as moisture mitigation ongoing in the fitness room
023with flooring to follow. Inside the bathrooms, they also got the fixture installation in progress. So this picture is from the cafeteria, so you can see the colorful columns and the wavy soffits and fancy lighting. And then this is in area G level 2, one of the science rooms coming together. And then a likely familiar room, but yet unfamiliar in hell, the old boardroom. - Is that the boardroom? - [AJ] Yeah, the fitness room. So you can see they got the floor leveling product down and moisture mitigation and the flooring coming up right after that. Second project we got going on this summer is Mariner Middle School HVAC improvements. So the phase one, well, I'm getting ahead of myself here. The high level recap. So the total bid day construction costs for that were 12 and
024a half million dollars. So through July of this year, that's an average of $588,235 a month. So this being what we call a summer slam, may heard me say that a couple times. This work, while it's 12 months to summers. Technically all that work is actually happening in three month chunks. So at our peak at this project, we hit $2,650,711 in a month, work going into place. So in construction, typically what we would consider light speed is 2 million. So it was a lot of folks putting in a lot of hours to make that project come together the last two summers. So part of that phase one was the structural reinforcements for the HVAC piping, as well as some of the snow load requirements and then new ceilings and lights where we were going through
025with that piping. The Phase 2 portion of that work is the remaining structural reinforcements for the HVAC piping and the ducting along with the ceilings and lights, and then toilet and ADA renovations. Some of the other work that we've got going on right now actively. The ceilings and the classrooms are getting completed. Grid and lights are being installed in the cafeteria, in the kitchen. Flooring and wall finishes. They got the slip resistant flooring and FRP in the a la carte room all done. Tile is done in the bathrooms as well as wrapping up in the kitchen. Inside the kitchen, they got the coiling doors installed, the kitchen hood installed, and the Ansul systems ongoing this week. And then walls and ceilings, they're framing, drywalling and tapings all done. Hard lid ceilings underway in the locker
026rooms. In the mechanical systems, they got four of five air handlers set in the penthouse. So there are 67 plus fans in the buildings as a part of this project, excluding the existing, that's capable of moving enough air for 100,000 people to breathe for one minute, (everyone chuckling) or fill one and a half Goodyear blimps. (everyone chuckling) And that's based on the average person breathing in two cubic feet per minute. So we did the math. Electrically, they got 10 of the electrical rooms complete and then they're working on wrapping up the penthouse right now along with all the AHU wearing, which you'll see in a little bit. And then they're working on final cleaning and carpet. So it's hard to really see, but the grid is in. And above that grid is thousands and thousands
027and thousands of hours of work with the structural reinforcements that had to go in. And there was, I stopped counting, but it was well over 788 lineal feet of piping. And that was only in the four inch size. So there was a lot, an immense amount of work that went into these projects that you will never see. (laughs) So this picture also does no justice. I don't know if anybody's been in that penthouse before, but what you can't tell from the picture is those are like 22 foot tall ceilings. So that air handler in that return air duct is fascinatingly large when you walk in there. And then another shot of the corridors. So again, a lot of work gonna be getting covered up, never to be seen again. But another fun fact here too,
028at this project we had almost 85,000 square feet of open ceiling so typically on a light to medium renovation, we would try not to exceed 35,000 square feet in any given summer. So again, coupling that with the two and a half million, we tackled almost double what you would try to do in a single summer. So they have been working lots of hours, working very hard to keep that thing moving forward. The third project, Sunrise Park where we're sitting, so high level again, total bid day construction costs here was about $29 million. So through June of this year, that's an average of $1,395,081 a month. So part of that phase one was obviously the district offices in the boardroom that we're sitting in now. Phase 2, portions of the work was included, the senior center,
029gymnastics room, well, gymnasium, kitchen and cafeteria, and the courtyard as well. So that's a picture of the community room. We'll have a couple more pictures going up. But as a part of the current updates right now, we've got Area A in the senior center, move in, obviously underway and punch list is ongoing. Area B in the gym, in the locker rooms. Gym's basically complete, if you've seen it, I'm sure you probably have. But just got a few more gymnastics equipment pieces to work through. And then the locker rooms are just awaiting benches and plumbing fixtures. Inside the kitchen, they've got the equipment going in and the existing hood and above ceiling MEP is ongoing. And then with regards to the Phase 3, which will be turning over in the spring of '26, they got mechanical
030and plumbing rough-ins just about wrapped up throughout both above ceiling in wall and tunnels. Speaking of tunnels, there are over 3,863 lineal feet of tunnel below this building, which is long enough to stretch from Sunrise Park to Mariner in a straight line, which is 3,487 feet from corner to corner. So approximately three quarters of a mile worth of tunnel. Also working on electrical rough-ins and then drywall. They're closing up the walls right behind them. So this is the circulation area outside of the reception there. And then the gymnasium. Fun little foam pit in there now too. that may or may not have been tried out. (board member laughing) So then a part of that phase three turning over spring '26, we've got the early childhood area in the transition education center as well. So more
031updates to follow as we get through that. And then this is a picture inside Phase 3, just kind of rough stages of where we're at. What you're looking at right now is the future maker space. So if you see kind of where the casework is sitting in the middle below that isolated soffit, that's where that maker space is gonna be. And then all the, a couple of the office spaces with the drywall mudding, sanding ready for paint. - [Representative] And these, I have it. - [AJ] Oh. - You don't know about these. We had two playground projects this summer too that, are just being completed now. This is an inclusive playground at Birch Lake Elementary. And that project both, well, both Birch Lake and the Otter Lake playgrounds are inclusive playgrounds and as opposed to
032our previous playgrounds, this creates more space within the playground that are students with disabilities can access. Rather than just being able to access a small portion of it, this allows them to access the majority of the playground. So that is at Birch Lake. We encourage you to take a look at that. If you get over to Birch Lake, go look at the new playground. And then the next one, hit it again, is the Otter Lake playground. And both of those are just wrapping up this week. Kevin, they're, I think maybe just, it's just the chips that we're needing to put in, right? - [Kevin] Yep, yeah, 72 hours to cure, put it in place, and now the chips (speaking off-mic) - [Board Member] Mic. - [Representative] Yep. So thanks to... Oh yeah, your microphone. Thanks
033to Kevin Fernandez and his team for the work that they've done. Kraus-Anderson does an outstanding job. And AJ's team is full of outstanding professionals, but a really heavy lift goes with Kevin Fernandez, who's on top of all of these projects. Doesn't miss details. He's right there on all of 'em, so. Thank you, Kevin, for the work you do on these. Kevin had a head of hair like Elvis Presley before this summer slam started. (everyone laughing) Any questions? - [Mr. Arcand] Anybody have any questions? Yes. Tell us. - Just a comment. You know, it's been really exciting to watch this progress over the last number of years and to see some of the really big projects like the high school and exciting things like new gymnasiums. But I really like to see the structural and the
034HVAC because I have a kid at Mariner, you know, and I want my kid and all the other kids to be in a building that is safe. And I think a lot of students all over the state in the country are in buildings that they're breathing in mold, or there's leaks or things are unsafe. And so I'm grateful to our community for not only supporting the new construction projects, but also just the projects that make our buildings safer for our kids. And so even though we'll never see it, it makes me feel better that it's being done. So hats off. Thank you. - [Mr. Arcand] Are there questions or discussions? Yes, Mr. Skaar. - This is facilities related, but I noticed somebody put a clock in the back, so I just want to recognize that
035person and thank him for that, 'cause I asked for that. I owe you a cup of coffee, whoever that was. Thank you. And, you know, maybe Kraus-Anderson did a great job, but let's not give him too big of a head, right? So, oh, by the way, I did take a tour and thank you for arranging it with Matt on the high school HVAC, 'cause I come from a HVAC background, so. And it was beautiful. It was really well done. Spent a lot of time in boring areas so it looked really good. One question that I had is, you know, I think the district did a great job of being transparent in the planning and where the budget is. But now that the chickens have come back to roost, the actuals landing where the budget is,
036I think it would be helpful. I mean, the pictures are great, but I think seeing where the budget is on these projects and then the actuals would be super helpful 'cause I read an article that the amount that we spent on the high school was 226 million, which is about 57% of the 400 million. Which sounds like a lot, but I mean, if you go through the high school there, there's a lot, there's a lot there. I mean, it's a beautiful high school. So I think somehow if staff could reconcile whatever we had planned on the budget and then the actuals by facility I think would be helpful. If you could consider doing that, I think it would be helpful. - Yep. Appreciate that. And there is a combination of bond and LTFM and all
037of these projects. And so that's a big portion of that is flushing that out so that people see what bond investment was versus bond and LTFM are two very different numbers. - [Mr. Skaar] Right. Thank you. Thanks guys. - [Dr. Kazmierczak] All right. Skaar, and I have one thing. - [Mr. Arcand] Yes, go ahead. - I was just gonna mention the Central Middle School community open house will be held on Wednesday, September 24th at 4:30. It'll last for a couple of hours that evening. That's homecoming week, so there's a lot going on. So that's being run in conjunction with the, is that the talent show that night at the high school? So if you get a tour of Central Middle School, including the renovated old district center, the original White Bear High, well, not quite
038the original White Bear High School, but there was one before that, correct? I mean, you are- - It was the first- - I wasn't teaching it, but. - Yeah. So anyway. - [Representative] It was the first school built as a high school for White Bear. - Yeah, built in 1918. So it's back to a school now. So it'd be really neat to see that. So again, that's on Wednesday, September 24th, starting at 4:30 and lasting till about 6:30, okay. - And that's Dr. Kazmierczak strategy for putting subtle pressure on Kraus-Anderson to continue to get all the work done, so. - [Mr. Arcand] Ms. Thompson. - I don't have a, this is silly, but I gotta say it anyways, 'cause you said the work was done at light speed, but maybe faster. So would that be
039warp speed? - I think it would be. Yeah, definitely. - I just always, it's fun to, it's amazing work that we're doing. I'm so thankful for the community supporting this. But you always bring fun to this part of it, and I think that's great. And I appreciate all the extra work you do to bring those, 'cause you know that we like 'em. So I think you kind of try to find them every time and I appreciate that. So thank you. - Okay. - [Kathleen] Just a couple comments. I love the umbrellas on the playground. It makes so much sense with the sun and the kids and all of that. - Kathleen. (Kathleen continues speaking off-mic) - [Mr. Arcand] Your microphone's not on. - [Kathleen] Oh, okay. I like the umbrellas. (chuckles) You didn't hear. They're
040really nice for the kids and to protect them from the sun and so on. What about, I'm just curious about what is actually in the tunnels under Sunrise. I mean, why do we have tunnels? You were saying how many we, they're not under every school, right? Or are they? Yeah? - They're under most. - [Kathleen] Oh, okay. All right. - So sometimes we'll reuse the tunnels for the mechanical plumbing systems. Basically it's just a way to hide all the things that might be above ceiling or in the slab, but do it inside a tunnel. - Got it. - But then also provide like some form of accessibility so that way when hopefully you don't have to maintain it, but at some point you will, that there's a clean way to get to it, so. -
041Okay. - Yeah. - [Kathleen] Okay, so most schools do. Well, thanks. Learn something new. - And I just wanna say thank you. Having spent three years in this building without any real air conditioning or cooling, and then three years over at Mariner with the windows that don't open and no cooling. This is awesome, 'cause now students can get in there and can actually focus on learning because they're not worried about how warm they are in that. So thank you very much. - I'll add one thing on the tunnel. My father-in-law taught here for 35 years or something like that. And there were a few occasions where he'd be teaching in the middle of the class and a panel would come and a student's head would pop up out of the floor. He'd be like, you
042know, "How'd you get in there?" "I went through the tunnel system," you know, so. It was kind of funny. He's got more stories than that. But that's another thing the tunnels were used for. - Here at Sunrise? - Yeah. - I just wanna say it wasn't me. (everyone laughing) - Wasn't you. - Okay. All right, anything else? - Thank you very much for everything. We're gonna go on now to D2. It's the White Bear Lake Area High School radon testing report. Mr. Wald and Mr. Fernandez? - Yes. Thank you, Chair Arcand. This was actually a really good segue from Ms. Ellison's comments earlier about the safety of her school buildings. And so we're gonna provide an update on radon testing report. And with us tonight is Kevin Clicker, our emergency and safety supervisor. So I'll
043turn it over to Kevin to walk us through it. - All right, hopefully, I'm not as entertaining. I don't have fun pictures and stories to share with you guys. But good evening, Chair Arcand, members of the board, and Superintendent Kazmierczak. Thanks for having me today. I'm going to be presenting a few slides just talking about some radon testing that we just recently completed, so. Is important to know radon testing in schools is a very important thing we do for our student safety. Radon, it's a colorless, it's odorless, it seeps in through the ground, right? So it's something that can happen like carbon monoxide where it's happening and you don't even know what's happening. And especially the little kids that like to crawl on the ground where that radon would seep in it, you know, it's
044a risk. So we do test regularly for that. Long-term exposure is actually the second leading cause of lung cancer. So we don't want our kids to experience that and we don't want our staff to experience that, or even the families that are in our buildings, especially 'cause children are actually more susceptible to that just due to their systems growing and developing and being well closer to the ground, so. So radon testing is part of our district's health and safety programs amongst other programs. We do lead and water testing. We do indoor air quality testing amongst a lot of other things as well. But it is something we do on a five-year rotating basis. So we hit every school within those five years. We do adjust it with construction. So the high schools actually do the
045previous year, but because it was under construction, it wouldn't have been effective to test it during that process. 'Cause they had a lot of ceilings open, a part of the building torn up and under construction. So we did adjust that last year. And then next year we have the four buildings that are currently under construction slotted to be tested for radon. So that would be Central, Mariner, North Star and Sunrise. North Star hadn't been done since it was opened, so they're due for it as well. So this is something that comes as a recommendation from the Minnesota Department of Health and the EPA if they highly, highly recommend that you do complete regular testing for radon in our buildings as well as in our houses and all the other places we are. But it is
046a voluntary plan that's highly encouraged and recommended. So that's why we do it on a five-year rotating basis instead of annually or something like that. Because it doesn't change that frequently if there's not construction, so. There's a statute that says if we do test for radon, that we do need to report it to the board. And that's why I'm here tonight sharing it with you guys. So we'll go through the results briefly. But first I wanted to talk about our, safety partner is IEA, that's the Institute for Environmental Assessment. They're Minnesota-based organization. They've been very supportive of our health and safety programs. They help us do a lot of testing and problem solving when we do come across things. They do specialize in school. So if you talk to other school districts, I would say
047at least half of them or maybe even more are partnering with IEA on some of these different projects. Then they send those test samples into an accredited third party lab for independent testing. So at the high school we did send in, so this process is very laid out, how we test for radon and how we have to alert everybody in the building. So we post things on the doors, we send out information to families and staff letting them know this is happening. And we do that for a couple different reasons. The most important is that these little test packets, the little pouches, they're gonna be all around the building and if they're tampered with, we have to retest. So you'll see we'd have 331 test kits placed in the building in 273 locations because there
048are requirements for redundancies. Just to check to make sure those tests are coming back accurately. So this is short term three day test. And then anything over four picoCuries per liter would be an actionable amount. So we would have to look into either a passive or an active grade on mitigation system. So we did include it in the information provided, right. We do have the results for each individual's space. But in summary, it was a very positive results. We did not, nothing achieved anywhere over 1.9 picoCuries per liter. So of the 266 tests that were left in place and measured, everything was under that 1.9. So it was very low. Most of them are actually under, or a lot of them are under .03. So very, very low results. So at this point with the
049high school, we are, you know, we don't have any active concerns with radon and we'll continue testing next year with those four buildings I listed on the last slide. And then I just have some links going to the EPA recommendations, the MDH guidelines and then the statute that requires us to report this to you guys here at the board. - Great. - Good. Thank you. Do we have any questions? Mr. Skaar. - [Dan] So thanks for the report. Appreciate it. So have we ever had a radon, a reportable radon issue in the past? - Not since I've been, like part of the process. I'm sure we've had some- - [Dan] So how long is that since, how long have you been here testing? - So I've been here since 2018. I did not take over
050kind of managing the health and safety programs until just a few years ago. - Okay. Do we know if we've had any? Probably not. - I'm not aware. - Okay. - I'm not aware that we've had any since I've been in this position just one year longer than he. And do you recall any before that? - Typically I did look back at the previous results. So because of how the pandemic happened, we didn't test for a few years and then we went back and tested almost every building to get us back caught up. And I looked through those results. We didn't have any above the action level at that point either. You know, typically our buildings are above grade. You know, we have the few instances like Venice Heights and the lower level that are
051slightly below grade, or even at Mariner Middle School where it's partially below grade. And that's typically underground is where you would see the high levels. Typically when you're above grade it's not as frequent that you would see issues. - So just just to comment on how important it is for staff teachers for their indoor air quality because they're typically more than students are of, this is just a personal story. A friend of mine's wife worked at Cleveland Public Schools and she ended up dying of lung cancer, never smoked, but it was because of the school. So I think, you know, what you're doing monitoring this, it's a requirement, but I think keeping our air clean is really important. Not just to the students, but also to the staff. So I just wanna make that comment.
052- [Kevin] Appreciate that. - [Scott] Okay. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? - I just wanna recognize Mr. Skaar saying that, 'cause that was one thing I wanted to recognize too, is that we have a lot of other, our students are obviously, but staff and other people that are in their buildings and just making sure everyone's safe is really important. So thank you. - And and aside from the annual testing, I will mention, you know, when we have concerns brought to us, we will do spot testing as needed. If the staff are concerned about things, we frequently will go and partner with a testing company and check in it, whether it's lead or air quality or mold, any of those items that could affect us on a daily basis. - Scott, just one other
053quick. Just a curious, do we have a industrial hygienist on staff or do we sub that out? - We do not. - Okay. - That is IEA. Our main partner is a certified industrial hygienist. - [Dan] All right. Thank you. - Yep. - [Scott] All right, well, thank you very much. - Thank you. - We are gonna move on to discussion item D3: summary of the superintendent's evaluation. The school board did meet with superintendent Dr. Kazmierczak on July 14th to conduct his annual performance evaluation. Dr. Kazmierczak continues to meet the board's expectations in key areas, including leadership for continuous improvement of student achievement, communications, stakeholder engagement, fiscal responsibility, school facilities, and the implementation and development of district policies. Together, Superintendent Kazmierczak and the school board have identified the following priorities for the '25-'26 school year.
054Create and sustain a safe, equitable and nurturing environment; promote and support students' personal learning experience and aspirations; ensure the organization continuously evolves to fulfill its mission; establish healthy and vital engagement with our entire community; maintain strong fiscal management and implement of the district facility plan. The school board extends its appreciation to Dr. Kazmierczak and his cabinet for their continued leadership and dedication during this exciting time for our district. Okay. And so we're gonna move on now to D4: first reading of the school board policies 414 and 516.5. These policies have been reviewed by the policy committee and they will come back to us on September 8th or another meeting for a second reading. If you have any questions, please gimme the page number so we can follow along. - Mr. Chair? - Yes, Mr. Skaar.
055- Were we supposed to approve agenda item D2? - [Scott] This is discussion. So no, there was no approval on those. This is just discussion. - Okay. So we're, okay. Thank you. - Okay, so any other questions for the first reading? If not, we will bring those back next month. And between there and now, if any board member has a question, please feel free to reach out to Dr. Kazmierczak with your question. Okay, we're gonna move on to the operational items. We're gonna move on to E1: action on proposed substitute teaching rate change. Mr. Mons. - Good evening. Tonight I'm asking for the board to approve the recommendation that we move our teacher substitute rates from $185 per day to 190, along with the corresponding half day rate change. And for our retired teachers who
056are coming back to sub for us, moving that from 195 to $200 per day. Every year we reach out and we look at neighboring districts to see where we're at relative to their pay rates. And this will keep us in a competitive position with our neighboring districts. - [Scott] Any questions? Yes, Mr. Skaar. - What does keeping it in a competitive mean? - [Matt] This will keep us in about the top third. - The top third? - Of the districts around us, yes. We don't wanna be right at the average and certainly not below. It's a really competitive market and they're very difficult to fill, right? So we wanna be, you know, near the top of that. - Do we have any issues recruiting at that rate? - We, you know, we're constantly adding to
057our sub list. I've been looking at our fill rates. They've actually continued to improve here. We made a switch in our paradigm, we're working with with another company that's helping with those recruitment efforts and that has been successful. So we're feeling good about where we'll be with this adjustment. - Right. Thank you. - Yep. - [Scott] Yes, Ms- - Do you happen to know offhand what the fill rates are for the- - Yes, at the moment here we've gotten up to 87% for our fill rate, which actually we've been seeing almost a 10% increase per year for the last three years here. So we're looking to keep moving that in a positive direction. - [Chris] One more, Scott? - [Scott] Yeah, go ahead. - Do you have building substitutes? - We do, yes. Yep, so
058we maintain building substitute at each of our buildings, the high school and the ALC share three between them there. And we also make sure that if there's not a need for a building substitute on a particular day in a particular building that there're going to another site because there's really never a day that we're not using all of our building substitutes and then some. - [Chris] Thank you. - Any other questions? So before us we have the proposal to increase our sub pay. Can I get a motion? - So moved. - And a second? - Second. - Second by Thompson. Any further discussion? - [Matt] Thank you. - This will be a roll call vote. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Ellison? - Aye. - Skaar? - Aye. - Strife Oji. - Aye.
059- Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Okay, motion carried. Thank you very much. - [Matt] Thank you. - All right, we're gonna move on to operational item E2. It's a superintendent contract. We have the opportunity tonight to approve a three-year contract from July 1st, 2026 to June 31st, 2029 with Superintendent Kazmierczak, Dr. Kazmierczak. And so per Minnesota statute 123 B.143, we could enter into negotiations now, and we have come to a tentative agreement, and I knew I did send that out to you. So the recommendation is to approve the three-year contract. Can I get a motion to do that? - So moved. - By Ellison. Is there a second? - [Streiff Oji] Second. - Second. Any discussion? - Can I just- - Yes. - Dr. Arcand. - Yeah. - Can
060I just amend to say that it should be through June 30th, 2029? 'Cause there's no June 31st. - We just added a day I guess. (Chris and Jessica laughing) Yes, June 30th. We'll make sure it's in there correctly. - Thank you. - Any other questions or discussion? Okay, this will be a roll call Vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. - Ellison. - Aye. - [Clerk] Skaar. - [Dan] I'm gonna abstain because I wasn't at that meeting when you did the review. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson. - Aye. - Arcand. - Aye. - Daniels. Aye. - Motion carried. (gavel thuds) All right, we're gonna move on to operational item E3, which is action on the school board policies 418, 501, 503, 515, 516, 534, 621, 707, 709, 802 and 806. Now
061normally is to remind you, we do this in one swoop together. Can I get a motion to approve the policies? - [Angela] So moved. - [Scott] By Thompson. A second? - [Jessica] Second. - Second by Ellison. Any discussion? I just wanna say once again, thank you to the Policy Committee for continually looking and reviewing. I know there's a lot of work that gets into it. Thank you for that. So this will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. Motion passes. All right, we are on to board forum. This is an opportunity for board members to talk about things coming up in the district or things that we're doing. Does anybody have any forum? - Oh, Ms. Daniels. Sorry, I didn't see you. - Oh, that's okay.
062I attended the family event up at the high school on Saturday, this last Saturday, August 9th, where there was a backpack giveaway to families in need. And the closet, the school, the educational foundation closet provided clothing for people to pick up if they wanted to. There was a free meal provided by a private person. There were registration for classes, there was the Bear Care, Bear Care was there giving vaccinations or physicals. So we just had lots of things going on. It was well attended by many, many families. And I wanna thank everybody who volunteered there. And also thank, in particular the Community of Grace Church who provided 350 backpacks that they filled and brought, delivered, and families picked up. So I just wanna give a shout out to them for their generosity. I know there
063were other people too and there are other individuals that also contributed, so I wanna thank them too. But that was a quite a big contribution by Community of Grace. So it was a great event for families and I just think it's a wonderful thing that the community does to help neighbors. - [Scott] Thank you. Yes, Ms. Ellison, - I just wanted to say thank you to the Community Services. Mr. Mar isn't even here to hear my accolades. It's so much work to put together summer programs for students and adults. And I think it's really a tremendous gift to the community to have opportunities for students to go out and play sports and do other various things. And so I just wanted to say thank you for everybody who was involved in community service. And then
064I also wanted to thank everybody who's getting ready for the school year, 'cause I think if you've never been in education, you don't quite know how much it takes to get a school year started. And so thank you to all the coaches, like Dr. Kazmierczak said, sports started today. And then, you know, the cabinet and the staff and the teachers who are all getting ready for the school year. It's a ton of work and so I mean, thank you, 'cause I will be ready in three weeks to send my children off to school, so. So thank you, everybody. - [Scott] All right. Anybody else? - I just was gonna say, I always felt as a educator and as a parent that August was like a big Sunday night. The whole month was like getting ready
065for the school year. So it's like a month of just the preparedness, the anxiety, the wondering, the getting things, purchasing things and all the things that go into getting a family launch, a classroom launch a community launch, a district launch, so. - That's a lot. - I agree with your comments. - Yeah. Mr. Skaar. - Well, I just wanna thank you, Scott, on that Ramsey County League of Elected Officials- - Ramsey County League of Local Governments. - Okay, well, I was close. - Yeah. - Okay. I got about 80% of it right, which usually for me is good enough. But, you know, Scott's hosted that. He's done a great job of hosting. He's a legend there. People are gonna miss him. I'm gonna take over. It's not gonna be easy for me to take over.
066So I just wanna thank you. He's done a really nice job of setting that up and making sure that we connect with our other folks in Roseville, Ramsey County, things like that. So thank you very much. - Thank you. - And then I just wanted to ask about this. You know, we live in a world of complexity, right? We're systems of systems. So we have this cyber incident that happened in the City of St. Paul. The City of St. Paul systems are connected to Ramsey County. We probably have handshakes to Ramsey County. So I would just, did we do anything to raise awareness around this? Did we do any assessments? Those types of things? You don't have to answer that now, but maybe at the next meeting we can talk about that, if we had
067any issues with that or what actions we took related to that. - And we could take that off to a different time. - Sure. - It doesn't really fit in form of the forum, so we can make sure that we note that. And then if you have right further questions, Dr. Kazmierczak- - Yeah, I may not fit into the forum all the time. Yeah, so I realize that. - School's gonna be starting soon and I wanna say this is why we're here. This is the business we're in of our children and it's exciting time, and another year, and I'm excited for it. - Go Bears. - All right. - Go bears. - All right. So right now I am at the adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjourn? - Motion. - Mr. Skaar. -
068Can I get a second? - Second. - Ellison. All right. All in favor say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Thank you. We are now adjourned. (gavel thuds)