001- I now call this meeting of School Board Independent School District 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the role? - Thompson? - Here. - Arcand? - Here. - Beloyed? - Here. - Daniels here. Ellison? - Here. - Skaar? - Here. - All right. Our first item tonight. Discussion on B1, Area Learning Center Update. Dr. Gillespie? - Chair Arcand, members of the board, I'd like to introduce two guests that we have today. Jenni Sjosten, who's the Assistant Principal of the Area Learning Center, and Russ Reetz, Principal at our high school. Jenni's gonna start for us as we update you on our Area Learning Center. - Awesome, thank you. I apologize. I know I sound like a frog. Just we're on the struggle bus in terms of health at my house, so. But I'm on
002antibiotics, so, I'm not contagious. (board laughing) Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me. It's been an awesome first year of learning for me at the Area Learning Center this year, so I'm really excited to present with you today. (mumbling) Awesome. Super. So, when I really think about a mission, for us at the ALC, it really defines the work that we do every day. It grounds us and it also serves as a challenge. And so when I really look at our mission, the words that stand out are the words that I underlined there. Is it safe for our students? Are we collaborative with our students and our families and each other? Are we flexible in our grouping? Are we flexible in our credit earning opportunities? Are we flexible in the way that
003we address their needs and each other? Do we show up for each other in ways that show that flexibility? And so really our mission is how we show up every day, is in the relationships that we have with each other, with families. Are we respectful and nurturing? And do we offer restorative opportunities whenever we can? Are we having an individualized approach whenever we are able to do that? Is it supportive and is it unique? It's an area learning center. We have to do things differently. And so for me, it's always thinking about, is there another way to approach this? Can we look at it from a different way? I think I'm really good at stepping back and I think the whole team at the ALC is really good at stepping back and, again, looking at
004that whole student. One thing that I think is kind of a hallmark that I've seen, I've been in alternative ed for almost 20 years. And so one thing that I think is a hallmark is that when a student comes to the ALC, they'll say, "I'm not gonna stay here very long. I wanna be out of here ASAP. I'm gonna be gone before you even know my name." And then within a short amount of time, they're saying, "I'm gonna stay here. I no longer wanna go back to my home school," whether that's the high school or if they're open enrolled, that they don't want to go back to their home school anymore. And so that's something that I hear time and time again in the short time that I've been at the ALC, that that's been
005a reality that I've seen also come to life. And so for me, I think that we are living and breathing this mission. And so that's one of the ways that I can really see that we're living the vision and mission every day. So, just to talk a little bit about the enrollment trends, you can see the last five years of data here. Last year was really an outlier in terms of enrollment. That was, of course, prior to me being here, so, but really if you look at this year, we started a little bit higher than the previous four years if you take out last year being that outlier. And then we're landing right now at about 182, which is pretty similar to two years past. So, I would say our enrollment is pretty similar to
006what we've experienced in years past as we start lower at the beginning of the year and kind of have anywhere from like a 30 to 40% increase throughout the school year, which is common as we get students from the high school or from other schools. All right, so there's a lot for us to celebrate at the Area Learning Center. First, of course, the graduation rates just came out and we do have 77.5% graduation rate. As you can see also, this was an increase of 26 percentage points since 2021. It's a lot to be proud of here. And as we know, students come to the Area Learning Center, most are behind in credits. And so for us, that's a really, you know, it might be lower than you see at the main high school, obviously, but
007when we have some students that come to us, you know, significantly behind in credit. So, the fact that they're able to recover credits and graduate is a huge accomplishment. So, while it might not be as high as the high school, we're still really proud to have that high graduation rate. We also have here information about the honor roll. Our honor roll looks a little bit different than what you traditionally see. So, ours is based on how much credit students earn. And so they have an opportunity to earn 3.25 credits every quarter. And so if they earn 2.5 credits in the quarter, then they're on the honor roll for that quarter. So, you can see these are the number of students that were on the honor roll each quarter. And then 50% of students throughout the
008school year this year have been on the honor roll. So, that's a pretty exciting celebration for us to see. And many students, this is the first time they've ever been on the honor roll. And the way that we celebrate that is we have a donut breakfast for the students and they get a certificate. This year, the students hated on the certificate that I designed. (board laughing) And so in the future, the students are gonna be designing the certificate, but I thought it was a really nice one. They did not like it. (board laughing) That's all right. They are high schoolers and they're always honest. So, there you go. They did not like it whatsoever, but I thought it was pretty awesome. And then the other one I just wanted to highlight is we had the
009Rotary STRIVE Scholarship Banquet a couple weeks ago, and I don't know if you're familiar with the Rotary STRIVE scholarships, but it's a really amazing scholarship for students that, really, it highlights and gives an opportunity for students to get a scholarship that are not like a traditional scholarship winner because they're in the bottom third in terms of their GPA. The thing that I thought was really wonderful when I sat in on the interviews, these students have stories really of triumph over adversity. They have persevered through some really difficult things and it was really wonderful to hear and see them be honored for their, excuse me, their accomplishments for really turning around their lives. And we had two full ride scholarships awarded and then two $3,000 scholarships awarded this year. And we actually only had four students
010apply this year, and all four students were awarded a scholarship. So that was a really, really fun awards banquet this year that all students were, which isn't typical that everybody gets a scholarship, but it was really fun to be there and see all the students receive something, so. And I was a Rotary Exchange student. Tim always hears me talk about this, but for me it's fun to see the Rotary do so many wonderful things in our schools and really wonderful to have them engaged in that way with the ALC. And they often come to visit us throughout the year just to say hi, which is really great. So, fun to have that. - Can I give one plug on the Rotary STRIVE scholarship? Rotary's offered this scholarship for decades and it's now an international scholarship
011program for Rotary. And it started right here in White Bear Lake. And Rotary STRIVE scholarships happen all over the country, in different areas of the world. And it started locally here in White Bear Lake and White Bear Lake High School. - Yeah, it's great. - Little fun fact. - [Sjosten] So, credit, so this is a little bit of just like the academic accomplishment. So, at the ALC, because we have an increase in enrollment throughout the year, it's really hard to look at, like, what's a really good data point for us to look at in terms of how the students are performing. So, we look at credit earned versus credit attempted. So, that's what you see here because we have this huge increase, if you think about a 30% increase throughout the school year of our
012enrollment, like, how can we really look at what's happening in terms of credit earning? So, we started kind of in the low 50s and we're up getting into about 61% right now in terms of what the credit earned versus what was attempted by students. This is quite typical for alternative populations. Again, like I said, this is, I've been in alt ed for about 20 years. I would like it to be much higher. So, this year is gonna be our kind of baseline data. They haven't looked at this data point in the past at the ALC. So, this is gonna be kind of our baseline year for looking at future forward, how we can really work in our kind of collaboration to increase that for the future. So, it's not atypical, but it's also a good
013baseline for us to know future forward how we can work to improve that. It also shows us some ways to when our attendance data might not always be representative, it also shows us another vantage point about engagement in terms of credit earnings. So, it just helps us to know what we wanna work on in terms of that. And obviously there's a direct connection there with credit earning and working towards graduation and striving towards that. So, that's kind of our main data point that we're really working on. All right, so next year, we'll be working to transition to trimesters, just like the high school. We found that we did a lot of data collection this year and I surveyed the staff and talked a lot with Alison and Jen and Russ to discuss if we were
014gonna also transition to trimesters with the high school. I think because we're a feeder school from the high school, most of our students do come from there. It's important that we align our programming in terms of aligning our calendars. So, we will be also moving to trimesters. It's a large lift for the ALC. But one really significant difference is that we will be having what I've coined the mini-mester, I'm very excited about this term. Way more excited than everyone else. But hey, this is how we become, like, history-makers is we make new words. So, what the mini-mester is, it is a smaller trimester. And so what it will be is a six-week grading period and it provides opportunities for students to earn credit at an increased frequency. This is really, really important for students in
015alternative education settings. If we have these longer trimesters, it actually gives them more opportunity to lose their credit that they're earning. And so by having these kind of shorter pit stops, if you will, for them to earn credit, they will actually earn more credit. And that's a proven strategy for students that are at risk for not graduating on time. Actually, in Minneapolis when I was there back in the day, we actually did three-week grading periods. I do not recommend that, we're not doing three-week grading periods. So, six weeks is a nice kind of middle ground for students and for teachers to be able to, like, get in, get some momentum, have that pit stop. And so there'll be two mini-mester in every trimester. And teachers will be working, this summer, they'll have some curriculum writing
016hours to continue to work on getting their curriculum ready for this trimester shift. And we've been working on that second semester also with some guidance with Jen to really get everyone ready. And we've been working every other Tuesday morning as a team to get everyone ready to align their curriculum and their scope and sequence. All right, so, another really important hallmark of alternative programming is really having an experiential learning. So, we do a lot of opportunities for students to kind of expand the learning outside of the classroom. So, you can see here some examples of field trips that we've gone on, science museums, the State Capitol, the MIA, we just went to Cedar Creek in the rain and students of course were very ill-dressed and were wearing shorts. So, we actually, you know, had makeshift
017ponchos that we made out of our garbage bags. So, thank you to Facilities for giving us very long garbage bags that could be ponchos. We've gone to Memorial Blood Centers three times this year. Also trying to do lots of ways that we can do community service as well, Feed My Starving Children. We actually took a group of students to Festival Foods and help them learn about how, like, with our changing economy, how to like budget. And it's interesting because you think, like, kids go grocery shopping all the time, but they don't. They don't know how to, like, do a budget, go grocery shopping, and then actually, like, cook the food. We have a kitchen, you know, also at the ALC. So, we've done lots of college visits also. And then we've had more guest speakers
018than I can count. They're always finding ways to bring community into the ALC. So, that's really exciting to see just so many ways that the teachers are innovative to bring the students either outside into the community or bring the community inside to the ALC. So, it's really something that I think is a hallmark of alternative programming. But specifically the ALC is a strength that I would say they do really, really well. So, first for the ALC this year, we had two family nights, which they haven't done before. We had a bingo night. You do not outgrow bingo. Bingo is good for all people. And so we had an awesome bingo night in the fall and we brought tons of families in and they were really happy just to be invited. They were like, "We haven't
019done something like this at the high school level." And it was just a really great kickoff in the fall. Normally, you know, there's always like the open house idea, which is a really great thing, too. But we just really wanted to do something that would be interactive and fun and the ALC's a lot smaller. And so really having families, like, walk around just didn't feel like it would be that engaging. And so we thought we would do something else. And Cup and Cone donated ice cream sandwiches. We got lots of prizes donated. And then we had some delicious food from a local Mexican restaurant. It was delicious and it just was a great kickoff to the year. And so we'll definitely be hoping to replicate that. And then a few weeks ago we had an
020ISI, which is an internal, what is it? Intentional social interaction, thank you. And it started at 5:30, and at like 5:24 I was like, oh my gosh, nobody's coming. And then all of a sudden it just, like, our whole school erupted and there was all these people there and it was amazing. There was a great turnout, and I just looked around and saw so many families, and staff interacting and chatting with the families. And actually the, the number one thing that families wrote and talked about was their gratitude for the school being a good fit for their child. I think when, you know, we have this awesome flagship high school, which is amazing and it's just not a good fit for some kids. And I think just to have another option for some students is
021really, it's a strength of our district, and I'm really proud that we have that offering. And then additionally, they said they just want more family nights, which I was like, that's great feedback. I was really a little bit surprised to hear that. I have my own children, and to be honest, sometimes the last thing I want is another activity to attend in their school. And I'm an educator and I like activities, but I'm just like, I don't want more activities. So, I just was really pleased to hear that they were happy to be extended that opportunity to come and be welcomed into the school. And they just wanna come more often. So, another way that we engage really intentionally with families is our advisor system, which students work with the same advisor throughout their entire
022time at the ALC. That's their main point of contact. If a family wants to know like, how is my child doing, they always hear it from the advisor and they give them up to date information on how they're doing. And they also give them all the information about their progress towards graduation. So, normally at the high school that would come mostly from their actual guidance counselor, but at the ALC that comes from their advisor. And so that person really works closely with each family and I think that's a really strong connection and system that we have at the ALC where families grow really connected to the advisor, as do the students. So, I think it's a really strong way that we connect well with families. - All right, thanks, Jenni. So, we are embarking on
023an ALC program review. We're partnering with District 916 to help us as we really think about and build upon the successes we've had this year at our high school. And then, what Jenni's mentioned, the success that she's seen, but also opportunities that we have around what pathways are we offering our students to graduation. Some students, the ALC is the absolute appropriate landing spot for them for the remainder of their high school career, and other students might wanna get back to the high school. And so really partnering with Jenni and Russ around those pathways that we offer. 916, as you know, have a lot of wonderful options as well. And so we're exploring three things and we will be back. So, I'm really giving you a preview of what we're doing, but we will have some
024things that we'll either want you action from you on and/or just to provide updates. But our district logistics, program review, and technical assistance. And so really it's looking at how do they help us think about what is the best designation for us to have as a district. Right now, we're designated as an ALC, which means that we, you have to be designated as an ALC to offer targeted services to our elementary students. You think after school activities and summer school. Additionally, you also need to have some sort of middle school program when you're an ALC. And then your high school component has to be open for 9-12 and accept students from other districts. We're examining whether we would shift to an ALP, which is an area learning program. And what that allows you to do
025is really focus what we're offering at the high school. So, maybe we decide 10-12 is what we'd wanna offer. And Russ really looking at, okay, what supports do we have so that students can stay at the high school? And really these are ideas that we're tossing around. We would still need to have an ALC designation because we want to offer targeted services to our families. And there are districts, member districts, at 916 that then partner with 916 and utilize their ALC designation. That would also allow us to truly look at our middle school programming and say, is this really what we need to do for our middle school students or is there something different? And so that's one aspect. The other two are, as Jenni mentioned, how can we really make sure that what we're
026doing at the ALC and build on the success that we've had is the most innovative programming that we can do. And ALC's are constantly reinventing themselves. So, everything we say now, or you know, when we make decisions, that is when Jenni talks about being part of ALCs for 20 years, people that have been there a long time are really used to creating different schedules and different programs. And so we would do what we believe is best knowing that we continue to improve. And then finally the one that I think will be what we first lead with is how do we make sure that we're really reporting everything we need to in the best way in terms of earning as much revenue as we can based on student attendance. I mentioned last week when I presented
027at the school board meeting, really making sure we're recording attendance accurately. It feels to me that maybe there's some things we could do better around that. And not that anything they're doing in the day to day, it's really our accounting of what we're doing. And so then having 916, because they run so many ALCs, they're able to really help us and look at it, and say these are the ways that we should be putting things in synergy and all of those things that happen behind the scenes, but they matter a lot, so that we can make sure that we're receiving the fiscal support that we need to from, you know, the state funding. And then looking at that across our system. So, it's three buckets. We have already started working with 916. Jenni and I
028will continue partnering with them and really getting things off the ground. What I'm most excited about is Jenni as a new administrator getting to really work with the staff and say, what are our beliefs, where are we aligned? This is an opportunity to really build on our success to say this is what we believe we need to be. And then partnering with the high school and Russ's team around, these are all the opportunities we have for kids to earn credit. We have opportunities at our high school as well. So then what ways can we help our students be successful? Did I miss anything? Okay. All right. So, really we're ready for any questions you might have. - Thank you. Do we have any questions? Ms. Daniels? - Can you explain, I sort of am familiar
029with some of it, but how a student would, are they self-referred, parent-referred, staff-referred? How did they get there? - Yeah, it can come in a multitude of ways. I think the first way is usually a staff referral or a parent referral. But we have a referral process that usually is generated through their guidance counselor at the high school. But sometimes it's word of mouth where they have a friend there. So, then if a parent requests it, that's another way. The student often will tell their parent that they want to go there, too, and then it can come that way. They do have to have one of 17 ways, so they can't just come because they wanna come. But 17 ways you have to qualify through one of those, which is pretty easy to do. Things
030like behind in credits, mental health concerns, an English learner, they're a parent, you know, things like that. Yeah. - [Daniels] And then another question, with the mini-mester... - Mini-mester. Yep. - Will they have an opportunity then to earn more credits in a shorter amount of time? Because they'll have more six weeks in a semester, or in a trimester. So, potentially they could earn twice as many credits? - So it'll be the same amount of credits. But we will offer one additional class per day than the high school has because the high school will have a five-period day, we'll have a six period day. And then we have other, like, other ways that students can make up credit recovery also through some different means like credit by assessment. Some of our field trip opportunities do offer
031credit also. So, we do have other ways for them to augment their credit-earning that way. But in terms of, like, that they're able to do it faster, no. - [Daniels] Yeah. Okay, one very short question. One more. Do you have any open-enrolled students? - Yes, we do. Yeah. We do. - Thank you. - All right. Other questions? Yes, Ms. Beloyed? - [Beloyed] What other districts are currently using the ALC through 916? - [Sjosten] Excuse me, using our ALC, or just the ALC in general? Our member districts? - The 916. - I don't know all the member districts off the top of my head, but Kathleen- - There's 13. - At most. - [Daniels] Yeah, and I was gonna say I think we may be, well, there might be one more that has an ALC. Otherwise,
032most of those districts are using the 916 district. - I think Roseville might be the only other district that carries their own ALC designation. - Yeah, I'm not sure about Miesville. - Oh, okay. Yep. - So, most do, though. Most use the 916. - I knew it was, I know five or six of them off the top of my head. But I know we've looked at the ALC a couple times over the past seven years that I know of. What's the reasoning now to take a look at maybe switching to the program versus the center approach? - It really is aligning our programs to the different specifications for ALC. And so we've looked at it in a sense of really looking at focusing at the high school, but we have not done a comprehensive review
033since I've been in the district, which would be eight years at least. And so it's aligning to, the ALC has specifications, and so if we chose to lean into the ALC, we would have to do some enhancements for our middle school programming, and middle school programming might not be the way that we see best meeting the needs of our students. The other piece is really looking at, what's our ninth grade program, what's our partner district? So, there's just some really clear designations around ALCs that we would have to enhance as a district. Whereas partnering with 916, you still have those opportunities but you don't have to carry those things yourself. And so, we really are in the beginning stages, but it's weighing what do we think as a system is better for us? - So,
034did something change? - No. - I guess I'm confused. - [Gillespie] So, it is just program review. So, nothing, the program has been the same. The designations that they have at MDE, we would need to do things to enhance middle school, which is not abnormal. Throughout COVID things fell off the wayside a little bit, and then having a full blown ALC program, you have to have a full blown middle school program, which we do not have right now. And so we would need to decide that that's something that we would wanna do. And that has been the case for, since I've been here. - But that's always been required for the designation? - [Gillespie] It has always been required, yes. - So, how did we get the designation? - I have no idea, and I've
035been, we've had the designation for quite some years and I'm not sure what it looked like then. I've done some diving into looking at our audits and things, but it's inconclusive on what we used to do and how that part of it fell off, and really wanting to focus forward in terms of how can we dive into, whether we need, we wanna have this middle school ALC, and if we don't, then this is another option for us to make sure that we meet. Because we need targeted services for our elementary students and middle school students for summer school. - [Beloyed] Okay. All right, thank you. - All right, thanks. Other questions? Mr. Skaar? - Thank you. Well, thanks for being here and the presentation. What's our capacity at the ALC for students? How many, can
036we take 300, 200? What's kind of a sweet spot? What's our capacity? - That's a good question. Well, all students are not built the same. So, one student can can feel like 10, and you know, so, I think in terms of an actual number, I would say a closer to 200, to 225 in terms of the regular school year. Now, in summer school, we do run a larger program in the summer in that we also have additional staff in the summer. So, we have about 300 students that come in the summer. - [Skaar] So, is is the building pretty full then? - Yes. - Okay. - Yeah, in terms of physical like space capacity, 300 maxes us out in terms of like the physical space capacity. - So, you mentioned that we have students from
037open enrollment from other districts. Like, do you have any idea how many? - I just looked it up. It's 25%. - 25%? - Yep. For last year. - Thank you. Is the funding any different if you're an ALC versus an ALP, or is the funding the same? - Funding is the same. Students can generate up to 1.2 ADM, and so students who are enrolled in ALPs or ALCs can generate 20% more, which is how you do with that credit recovery or summer school. So, you get additional funding that way. - Okay. Thank you. Thanks. I hope you feel better. - Oh, thank you, thank you. This is actually improved, so. - Okay, Ms. Ellison? - How do the students at the ALC, how do you ensure that students at the ALC have the opportunities to
038participate in events at the high school? I mean, sports and music and theater, how does that work? - So, the nice thing is that, like Russ and I meet often, I also attend the admin meetings at the high school. So, I think the collaboration between our buildings is really strong and I think that's a strength that we've really worked on this year. Students, Russ, I will say, I just wanna give you a shout-out. - Okay. - Yeah. (board laughing) So, again, since I've worked in alternative ed for a long time, the relationship between the high school and the ALC that I'm experiencing here is very different. And I would say it's mostly because Russ really has a really singular, and when I say singular, I mean it in a positive way, attitude towards our students.
039Because we both have the belief that all our kids are all our kids. And I really feel that from him and I really appreciate that. And so that is our approach, that all our kids are all our kids. And so our kids are welcome at the high school for sporting events, for the pep fest, for all those things. And when it was time for the pep fest that, you know, joined the high schools, the first one in the fall, and I was like, "Russ, my kids wanna be there." Russ was like, "Yep. We don't have space for our current kids but bring them on." You know? And that has not been an attitude that I've always experienced. I've been in other districts where, you know, we had to like bring them in and basically had
040to, you know, escort them in and escort them out, and they were not very welcomed and it felt really terrible. And that's just not Russ's approach. And so I think like us meeting and really having this belief that our White Bear kids at the ALC are White Bear kids. And I think if you have that fundamental belief, which he does and we do, then there isn't a need for us to worry about it because it kind of works itself out. So, students participate in sports, students participate in the things that they want to at the high school. And so anyone who wants to is welcome, and we've extended all of that. And I also get to be at the events, too, just like the rest of the other APs. And so, you know, homecoming we
041bonded, and you know, I'm there just like everyone else, and the kids see me there also. So, prom, I was there with my breathalyzer just like the other APs, you know? So, yeah. - [Ellison] Thank you, and I also just wanted to note, I appreciate the presentation, and just a note to Dr. Kazmierczak and Dr. Gillespie, I've really enjoyed having all of the buildings come and present to us this year. This is the first time we've done it like this since I've been on the board and it's really given us a close look at what happens at the school from your lens of being there every single day. And I think that gives us a lot of good context and helps us make decisions. So, I'd love it if we continued this. - [Kazmierczak] Yeah,
042that's the plan. We're back on track. If you recall we started this pre-COVID and then several things got derailed. That was one of them. But we're back. This will be a regular- - [Ellison] Yeah, it's tremendously helpful and just really good for us to know what's going on in all the buildings. - [Gillespie] Yeah, the principals have really enjoyed it as well. They very much enjoy time to celebrate what they're doing and share some of their challenges. But getting face time with all of you has been a help to them, so thank you. - Thank you. Ms. Thompson? - I guess I just wanna circle back to the ALC/ALP piece because I'm also a little confused and I just wanna, my understanding is that if we have an ALC, we should have an ALC that
043also serves our elementary and our middle school students? - [Gillespie] Middle school, not elementary. - Not, okay, because you said that we needed to have an elementary piece. - So, elementary is targeted services, and so you have to as a district have an ALC designation to be able to offer targeted services at the elementary. And that is when you think of the after school programs and summer school that we offer to kids who are getting extra help based on academics. And so that really is the elementary part of it. But in order to be able to offer that, you as a district have to have the ALC designation, so, pause right there. The ALC designation means that you have a partner district that you specifically work with. Which, my guess is at one point, we
044had Mahtomedi as our partner district. That partnership isn't as strong anymore. And so in order to do a program review, that's one of the things we'll have to decide. Do we wanna, you know, double down on that partnership, or does it make more sense for us to have the partnership with 916? The other piece you have to offer is a comprehensive middle school program that's an ALC. Meaning, offering all of the subject areas and being able to be offered to 6th through 8th grade. What we do right now meets what I would call the basic requirements of compliance and it's not, we would wanna double down on that and say, okay, really what are we offering for middle school? Is this really meeting the needs of our students? Middle school, we have other ways as
045well. We have a access funding which helps with intervention staffing at the middle school. So, when you think about supporting kids who might struggle at middle school, we might not through this process decide it's best to double down our resources to have a comprehensive, kind of either school within a school, or literally to have some of our middle school kids go to our current area learning center. Those two things have to be in place for you to truly be in compliance to have the ALC designation. Then that's when you can offer targeted services. So, we can't lose the targeted services piece. We also very much are committed to the high school program that we offer. So, one way many districts do this, and I too have been a part of ALCs for 20 years, and
046both of my previous ALCs, one in Richfield and in Wayzata transitioned from ALC to ALP, because they have partner districts who can help that. And really it's the middle school component that's the most challenging to figure out. And so then what we can do is still offer all of these things for our students, but we do it in a way that we're partnering with 916, but it gives us more flexibility to say, this is who our ALC is and we actually aren't gonna try to be everything to everyone. We're meeting the needs that we have immediately in our program, but it is, you know, constantly growing. So, that really, I hope I'm explaining it well, but there's pieces that right now I would not say we're completely out of compliance, but they're not to the
047level that I feel comfortable with for us to double. And so we have to decide to double down on, either we're gonna increase that ALC or another way to do it is to look at the ALP. - And so 916 would be able to support all of those needs? - Yep, so, what they do is, it really doesn't change a lot for what we're doing right now besides free us a little bit up from not, we would not have to do anything in the middle school and would still be able to offer targeted services. Our ALC, it really doesn't change much of what we're doing right now. And 916 would actually be our partner district. And so then I don't know yet, I will, the logistics of how, you know, students get coded, but the
048funding would still come to us. It's much like we have partnerships for other things with 916 and they're very used to it. It was not a hard, you know, initial conversation with it even being a possibility. - So, then the middle school students who need those services would get them but they would get them through 916? - They could, yeah. But it's really uncommon for middle school kids to be transferred to area learning centers. Like, I have yet to do it since I've been here, and I can't think of in my previous life. They're just really uncommon to have those programs, and when they do it's really specific needs. But most school districts, you're really trying to figure out through intervention, other supportive programs, how can we keep our middle school students in the middle
049schools, and when you need them to have a smaller school, you can almost always do it a little bit easier in terms of, you know, slowing down, 6th grades in a hallway as opposed to being all at the high school. So, it's rare. But we would, just like we do with other situations, we can partner with 916 for a specific student's needs. - Okay, thank you. - Ms. Beloyed? - I was wondering, regarding, jumping back to sports, is the eligibility requirements, are they different for the ALC for participation or how does that work? - So, sometimes, like, I'll work with Mr. Peloquin to see, because sometimes if our students are not necessarily on track for graduation in the same way, but they're making progress towards it, you know, then we have a conversation. But no,
050all the other requirements are the same. But sometimes we do have a conversation in terms of, like if they're on track for graduation, we do have conversations about that. And if they're progressing at a rate that makes sense for that student, then sometimes that particular one is looked at a little bit differently. - [Beloyed] Okay, thank you. - All right, I just have a couple of questions. When we're talking about the mini-mesters, I'm assuming that the students aren't earning full credit. What it does it allows them to get partial credit in those six weeks and if something happens, sometimes a student is gone for a while, then they come back, they don't lose that, they can continue to build on that credit. Is that how it's working? - So, basically cutting the trimester amount in
051half, and so if they have, you know, a bad six weeks, then that's kind of in the past and they start over with the new one. We do do partial credits, which I think is another strength of the ALC, which is, you know, not obviously offered at the high school because it's just not manageable. So, in that case where like a student is able to earn partial credit, you know, we always do that. But it's just, again, like, a little bit of a shorter time for them to be able to earn credit and if they, you know, get off track for a little bit, and they do earn some partial credit, then they would earn that part of it. - But can they earn the full credit of the course in the six weeks or-
052- Not, it's only the trimester divided in half. Yep. - That's what I was wondering. Okay. And then my last question is when are you expecting to wrap up your study? - My timelines, chair, are often faster than our system is willing to go. So, I will tell you my goal is to have it completely wrapped up next year. I want it to be a little bit further along than we are right now. And so that is for sure that we'd have recommendations but I don't know that we'll be as far along to start the fall as we want to. Because obviously we need to have, we have many conversations to have internally, but that is what I'm shooting for. - And absolutely a timeline is a timeline and you adjust it as you go,
053so. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate the time you've put in in coming to visit with us. We're wishing you a lot of success these last few weeks of school, too. - [Sjosten] I'll also be sending out an invitation to our graduation, so, it will be the day before the high school's graduation on the 4th. So, just be looking for that. We'll be sending that out this week. - Thank you. All right, we're gonna move on to discussion item B2, FY2025-26 Preliminary Budget Overview. Mr. Wald and Ms. Johnson? - Thank you Chair Arcand, members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak. Today we're looking at our preliminary budget for the next FY2025-26. And we'll also look at what we're projecting to be a budget for the following year. We usually start our budget presentations just reminding
054of the budget cycle. We're always juggling two budgets. So, as we end this school year, we'll start our audit process. So we'll keep a foot in this current school year while we're still working toward or working in next school year's budget. So, we're starting with the audit process in the summer, start working on the tax levy in the fall, present the audit report to the school board, the truth and taxation hearing in December is when the board sets the final levy. And then mid-year we do budget adjustments, knowing that we're, you know, we're assuming certain things when we build a budget. Like any budget, it's built upon assumptions, and so mid-year we make some adjustments to it because we have better numbers to work with. And then that brings us to where we're at now,
055where we're presenting the preliminary budget and we'll be bringing it to you in June 9th for approval. You've seen this chart before, I believe. This follows the general education formula allowance. And this is our primary funding mechanism for public schools in Minnesota. And if we go back to 2003 and we use that as the starting point and then track what the per pupil formula was, the general funding formula, over those years you can see in the orange line in the bottom what that funding formula amount has been. And then you can see the blue line tells you what the inflation rate was or what it would be if it were adjusted for inflation. Really, our buying power. And you can see that our buying power has significantly lost ground over these last 23 years. In
056fact, had it just kept pace with inflation, our per pupil formula would be $1,470 more, or $13,365,000 impact on our budget. Last year when we had this conversation, the number was $11,206,000. So, each year is a significant, that just continues to move the wrong direction. Five years ago that difference wasn't $1,470, it was $632. So, it's really gotten significantly different. Recall that in the last biennium, the legislators passed a bill that school funding would keep pace with the rate of inflation up to 3%. And so if rate inflation's above 3, the increase would cap at 3. So, that leads us into assumptions for next year's budget. Like I said, all budgets are built upon assumptions and these are the key assumptions that our budget was built with. So, from an enrollment perspective at that 8,300
057number, we're in a pretty stable period now for enrollment. And so we see that remaining pretty stable. The formula allowance for next year will be adjusted, we believe, at a 2.74% increase. So, we're in pretty good shape there. The following year, we're using the number of 2.5%. It could be a little bit higher, it could be a little bit lower, but we think we're probably gonna be pretty close at 2.5%. Summer term unemployment, that was a bill or a program that was passed in the last legislative session and it provides summer unemployment benefits to nine-month employees. And so the state funded it for the first few years, but their estimates of the number of employees who would claim the summer unemployment was significantly lower than the number that's actually been claiming it. And so we're
058not sure how that's gonna play out now in this, as they bring this bill together with the Senate and the House, when they bring it to committee. So, for this summer of, well, for next summer '26, it looks like the House and the Senate both are proposing funding that. And then as we go ahead to the next fiscal year, the House is recommending that school districts fund that and the Senate might be in the same place. We'll know soon, but hopefully by the time we bring the budget to June 9th, we'll have a better understanding of what will happen for FY2026-27. But we've built $650,000 of expenditures into this budget to cover that if we need to. The House bill recommends sunsetting that program in FY2028. And I think the Senate has a different opinion
059on that. So, they've got a lot to work out. For paid medical family leave or paid family medical leave, that also is a new mandate from the previous biennium that starts on January 1st. We've budgeted in $226,000 and $376,000 over the next two years for that. That is funded through payroll taxes, 0.88%, and the employer pays half of that and the employee pays half of it. And so that 0.44% is reflected in the assumptions. Special ed transportation, we think that will probably be what it is up there at 95% proration. And so that's a significant budget expense for us as well. So, those are our key assumptions going into next year. And Andi will walk us through our budget summary. - [Johnson] So, knowing all of those assumptions that Tim just went through, what's the
060impact then for the numbers for next school year? So, focusing on the shaded column, the preliminary 2025-26 column, for revenues for next school year, we're projecting just short of $147 million and then expenses just over $147 million. So, looking at a deficiency of revenues under expenses of about $500,000. And there's three main pots that that deficit rolls into. Our operating capital, our capital projects, and then the unassigned. And if you recall the unassigned is the fund balance that we typically really focus on. We have a school board policy that requires that we maintain a minimum of 8% fund balance in our unassigned fund balance. So, that $500,000 deficit, $313,000 of it is gonna reduce our operating capital fund balance. We're gonna increase our capital projects fund balance a little bit based on some need of
061about $250,000. And so our unassigned, we're projecting a deficit of about $454,000 for next year. So, if we look then at the bottom in the blue line, the ending fund balance for our unassigned fund balance for next school year, that these assumptions put us at about $11.4 million, which hits right at that 8% target fund balance. So, it feels pretty good coming into next school year. Really what this shows is that we've made a lot of budget adjustments in the past several years and they're really coming, you know, they're working out, they're doing what we needed them to do. And so that feels pretty good that we've done that hard work and it's done what we needed it to do. If we look forward to what we're projecting for 26-27, I'll just focus on the
062unassigned fund balance, looking at just shy of $11 million for that year in our fund balance, that does put us down to about 7.5%. So, based on what the legislature actually approves, we will fine-tooth comb this and change that. So, we're just under for 26-27. So if that's really where we end up coming out, then we'll have to be making some budget adjustments next year to get back to that 8%. Then looking at the other three funds that we need to bring to the school board for approval, our nutrition services fund, if you recall, we have free meals for all and we're just in our second year. And so we're still having a hard time knowing exactly where everything is gonna come in. And so as we've been working with our nutrition services director, we
063feel that we have a conservative budget here just because we don't have the full year of data yet for this school year. COVID was pretty nice in the nutrition services fund. So, we've had a very healthy fund balance. So having these conservative numbers for the next couple of years are okay. If you look at the preliminary budget for next school year, we're projecting a deficit of about $800,000, which would put us at about $1.4 million or 18% fund balance. We know we can't continue to maintain a deficit fund balance and so we're working really closely with the nutrition services director to make sure we're monitoring that and we'll make adjustments coming forward in the revised budget, and then again in the 26-27 school year. - Part of what comes into play when you have a
064fund balance in nutritional services, you don't need to carry that large of a fund balance in nutritional services. We have some capital expenditures that qualify for nutritional services funds that we can bite off when we're dealing with some excess things like delivery trucks. We had a delivery truck go down this year. So, those types of things come in to fit that, so it looks like she's running maybe at more of a negative balance, negative operationally, than we really are. It's just there's some capital expenditures in there that spend that down a little bit. - Yep. Then in the community services fund, COVID was not so friendly to the community services folks. When you have revenue very dependent on participation, it was really tricky for them. And so we're working our way out of that deficit
065that we realized in the 23-24 school year. So, this upcoming school year we're projecting about $8.5 million of revenue and about $8.3 of expenses. So, we're really looking to cut that deficit in half for next school year. So, coming in at about $115,000 of excess revenue, bringing the deficit in that fund balance to $115,000 as well. And we've been working really closely with Tim and the other community services folks and we feel good about some of the budget changes that we've put into place for the upcoming school year. So, I feel like this is probably a little bit conservative, but appropriate for budgeting purposes for that fund. And then the debt service fund, this is the fund where we essentially pay our mortgage payments. So, as we have referendum bonds that we issue or facility
066maintenance bonds, all of the tax proceeds that come in to pay off that debt flows through the debt service fund. So, our revenues are set by the state, we tell them what are our anticipated debt payments are based on our debt payment schedules, and they set a levy equal to 105% so that we always have a little bit of extra cash to cover those needs. And then the expenditures are really just based on our debt payment schedule and the Department of Education monitors, then, our ending fund balance, and as that kind of inches up because we get that extra 5%, eventually, then they have a negative adjustment to kind of get that fund balance back down. So for next school year, we're looking at about $6.7 million of ending fund balance, or about 19.6%. So,
067that's what we have. As we talked about, we anticipate the legislature is gonna have some news for us, you know, in the very near future. And so I do anticipate that what we bring forward to you for approval in June is gonna be a little bit different than this and we'll talk about that at that time. So, any questions? - Thank you. Questions? Mr. Skaar? - I've got some questions. Within your budget assumptions, do you have, like, headcount numbers? Employee numbers? - Yep. For salaries and benefits. - Okay, so that would be like a key assumption that would be, maybe, we should see, you know, as well as the enrollment number. The other thing is, I'm looking at the expenses and I'm wondering how you budget your expenses. Do you go out to each principal
068department head. and they come up, they build up their cost, kind of like a zero-base budgeting process where they say, they build their, then they give it to you and then you summarize everything? Can you- - Yeah, I can speak to our budgeting process. We have a more centralized budgeting process. So, really the assumptions in the building of the budget really lies within the finance office. Certainly, as the building principals or a program manager might have needs, they'll come to us and say, "I really have this need for X, Y, Z program and here's what the cost is." And then as administration, we'll talk about that and see if we can work that into the budget. But really it's a 20,000 line document that we comb through and make our assumptions and build that budget
069in that way. It generally builds off of last year's. We don't, so there are, certain programs may have a more zero-base where you start at zero and you identify every single need and build that. That's not the process that we've used in the past year. - I see. So, one of the things, when I look at the enrollment numbers, and that generates a large piece of the revenue, and we had the bond referendum, which was $326 million, which is gonna be, the construction's gonna be complete in December, right? We base that referendum on 10,000 students and we're about 20% off. So, that's a miss of $65 million, if you've multiply the 20% times $326 million. So, and I know I've asked Tim this question before, but that to me is a little bit scary. A
070little bit scary to have that 20% out that we should, where we should be at 10,000, we're at 8,300, and what kind of repercussions is that gonna have, especially when I see our costs are going up, our enrollments go flat, to go declining. Why are expenses going up? That would be the question that I would have. Why are expenses going up in relation to declining enrollment? - Well, what I would say is we did see decline in enrollment, you know, particularly during the COVID years. As we've been looking at our projections going forward, we actually feel pretty positive about enrollment. We've really looked really closely at our monthly enrollment this school year, and that's actually outperforming what we've done month-to-month over the last couple of years. So I think we're gonna outperform our enrollment projections
071for this year. And as we look forward, I mean, the kindergarten numbers are super difficult to predict, right? It's all dependent on how many babies were born or families moved in. But our enrollment going forward as well, even out a couple of more years, is preliminarily looking positive and that we'll actually start seeing some growth. So, certainly it's not the level of growth that was anticipated by the demographers prior to COVID. That kind of threw everything, you know, threw everything for a loop. But the increases that we're seeing really are more like cost of living increases. They're not very large, like, anticipated programmatic growth. It's really more, what do we think the salary settlements are gonna look like? What do we think our utilities are gonna go up by? It's not really drastic program growth.
072- So, maybe at the next meeting we can kind of get a picture of, like, the average increase in, like, for example, your salary infringes, that type of thing. What are we, you know, maybe we can get, maybe you can present that. That I think would be helpful. I think the other thing is, and you know, I'm a rookie on this, so, I'm asking questions from a different viewfinder than maybe you're used to. But when I look at, like your support services, one of the things, you know, across the country, what we've seen is indirect support services increase. I looked, I read a stat across the country, 81% of the increase in K-12 education was in indirect or support services, administrative services. And when I look at our budget, we have about, I don't know
073if I calculated it right, $26.1 million in support services if you add them all up. I mean, I don't know, how does that compare to, is there benchmarks where we can say, yeah, this looks right, we're better than, you know, we're actually running support services leaner, and we're getting more value out of it, more productivity? Is there something that we can look at for that to get an idea where we're at? - Yep, so the way that we lay out our expenses in the budget documents, the same way that we prepare them in our audit, are in broad categories that are required by the Minnesota Department of Education. And so every school district has all of these different categories in their reporting. So, yes, there's public information that we can certainly pull off of the
074Department of Education's website and we can put together comparisons. One thing that I always caution when looking at comparisons is the data is only as good as the person who's giving it. And it's really easy to code something as instructional in one district and as support in another. Right? - I've heard that, right. And I've noticed that even just in my different districts, like, "Oh, huh, you know, I would've coded this as instructional support, and we've been coding it as non-instructional or more just as support services." And so comparisons, we can certainly do them, but they're just not always apples to apples. - There's comparable data in the audit report. In the management letter, there's a comparison for metro districts and then the whole state compared to individual districts. - Right. - So, that data's
075in there. - I saw some of that, yes. Thank you. - Yeah, and I think as you look at it, our budget compared to others across the state, you find that those categories are all pretty similar. Little bit of this, but not off by a lot. Districts are all in very similar places. We're all required to provide the same services, right? And so that drives a significant amount of it. - And I would just add one more thing that's very obviously gonna throw a comparison related to our long-term facility maintenance funding. And so that's really driven by what needs have we identified within our facilities and that we feel like we're able to tackle in this school year. And we know we have a very focused budget on our facilities right now, whereas some of
076our neighboring districts, maybe they've been keeping up on their facilities in a different way. And so our buildings and grounds expense is very likely higher than what a lot of school districts are just because we have that really focus on LTFM projects. And so I would suspect that we would have a really wonky graph if I were to put up, you know, our neighboring districts in that particular area, so. - When you have fixed assets, like we've got a lot of fixed assets, we've got a lot of buildings, what's the granularity on the district recording those assets? Do you classify them by building and then subcategories, like the HVAC equipment or furniture, or is that how it's organized? - I would say it all depends on the scope of the project at the time. So,
077like North Star for example, that's, like, on our fixed asset schedule, that's pretty much one asset because it was all done at one time, the construction was all done at one time. And so on our fixed asset schedule, that's one, or maybe just a few. As we have, like, projects within a building, then we certainly may capitalize that based on what that project was. Our fixed asset policy requires that we capitalize anything over $10,000 individually. So, like, most likely my laptop would never end up being capitalized, right? Because that's gonna be more than $10,000 individually. And so we comb through all of our expenses. Any line item that's over $10,000 we take a look at to see, at audit time, okay, is this something that we need to capitalize, or is it just an expense?
078It's a tedious process, but we do it. - Do you have a asset management system where you key in major components of equipment? So, then you know what, you have a maintenance schedule for that, so that folks know, hey, this needs to be looked at every year, every five years, that type of thing? - Yeah, our fixed assets are, there's kind of two, well, there's probably three kind of broad categories. We would have like our building assets that would fall under our buildings and grounds department. We'd have like things that we might have purchased at a building level. And then we have technology. So, technology right now is actually looking at, they're in the process of implementing a management software. We've done it kind of on Google Sheets basically in the past. And so we've
079acknowledged that that's not the right solution. And so we're implementing that for sure at the technology level. At the building level, no, really it's, you know, when they have the needs, they come up and we just deal with them then. And on the buildings and ground side, it's not a system really, but it is a spreadsheet that we track, kind of, what do we know is coming up. And, you know, our custodial department, they have an awareness of what the needs are immediately and down the road. - Thank you. - Yeah. - Thanks. - All right. Ms Beloyed? - Can you say what all goes into support services? - Well, I can, no. I would wanna see what Dan was looking at specifically and then I could tell you, like, which ones I would qualify
080as instructional. If I'm thinking about instructional and I'm looking at the more detailed document that went to the school board, I would think of the elementary and secondary instruction, certainly. I would also include vocational education because that's definitely instruction. It's in the- - So when you say instruction, that means- - Yep, that means instruction. I would also include special ed, like, that's certainly instructional, and you know, some of the instructional support services, some of those are, you know, they're touching kids, it's just that MDE requires us to report it in this category. And the same with the pupil support services. I think a lot of that is also I would categorize as instructional. So, I'd wanna take the time to sit down with Dan and kind of comb through it and see, this is what
081I consider really instructional, just like multiple items categorized under that. - So, in terms of when we first started budgeting for the, we had a demographic, the bond referendum went through, and we did all that based off of whatever the number was, 90 something or whatever, high nine thousands. How many times have we rightsized the budget since then because of COVID? - So very many, right? I think I've been here almost five years and I think we've made some type of budget adjustments every year. This is the first year where we've been able to kind of feel okay about where we're at. - But all of that rightsizing is dependent on the pupils we have in those seats. So when we're rightsizing, it's not necessarily based on the building size, it's based off of how
082many kids we have in each of those buildings. So, that's what we're building the budget off of, so that we can eventually get back up to 9,000 some, right? - [Johnson] That's what we're hoping for. Yep. Hopefully sooner than later. Yeah. - Okay. I just wanted to make sure we got that point out. All right. Thank you. - Ms. Thompson? - I don't have a question. I'm just gonna do my same comment that I do every time you come and present to us and we see the per pupil funding formula. And I looked at it this time and I right away was like, that much more since the last time you guys have all presented to us. And so, once again, just if you're listening in the community, call your representatives, call your people, and
083tell them to fund public schools. Because we're in this situation because we're not properly funded. And you two do everything you do and your whole team to come up with the numbers and you always do amazing work with your guesstimations based on what has happened over the last few years and I really appreciate that. But we need that funding and there's only so many, there's only one area we can get it from. So, call your legislature, call your senators, tell them to fund our schools. - Amen. - Thank you. - All right, seems like that, hey, it's good to be excited to see what happens when you come back. We're waiting for the legislature, so, I hope it comes back sooner than later so you can get all the numbers crunched. - [Wald] I hope
084we know by then. - [Johnson] We're maybe not holding our breath. - Thank you for coming in and presenting. We always love hearing from you. All right, we're gonna move on to operational item C1, Action on Tentative Agreement, for 2025-27 Fiscal Years for International Union of Operating Engineers Local No. 70 Transportation Unit. Mr. Mons? - All right, thank you very much. There we go. Thank you very much. So, as we've discussed in closed session, we went a little out of order here because as we went through the process of reviewing our contracts for transportation, we realized that, you know, the market continues to really advance rapidly in terms of compensation for our bus drivers. And so because of that, we went off-cycle and we started an early round of bargaining with our transportation folks. We
085had a really good conversation, a collaborative dialogue there, and we were able to reach a tentative agreement. So, we really appreciated the folks that came to the table. I wanna say thank you of course to our team as well, Tim Wald, Andi Johnson, and Cynthia Gustafson for their work in putting that together and moving through the process. And with that I will ask for a vote. - Okay, so the motion, we have an action on the tentative agreement to approve the 2025-27 Fiscal Years for International Union of Operating Engineers Local No. 70. Do I have a motion? - So moved. - Thompson, do I have a second? - Second. - Second by Ellison. Questions? Okay, hearing none, I'll go ahead and bring this to a vote. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll. -
086Thompson? - Aye. - Arcand? - Aye. - Daniels, aye. Ellison? - Aye. - Skaar? - Aye. - Okay, the motion carries. Thank you. All right, well, can I get a motion for an adjournment? - So moved. (panel laughing) - And a second. - Aw, she took you out. - Second. - All right, this will be a vote. All in favor, say aye. - Aye. - Opposed, same sign? We are now adjourned.