001- I now call this meeting of the School Board of Independent School District 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Arcand? - Here. - Beloyed? - Here. - Daniels? - Here. - Ellison? - Here. - Skaar? - Here. - All right, if you could please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Please take off your hat if you have one. - [All] I pledge allegiance all 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. Could I get a motion to approve? - So moved. - Ms. Ellis. Does it have a second? - Second. - Ellison, excuse me. Miss Beloyed. So we have a second. Is there
002any discussion? This will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. We also have before us a consent agenda. The consent agenda is designed to expedite the handling of routine miscellaneous official business of the school board. This includes donations. We are truly grateful of the support shown every month to the staff and the students. We wanna make sure we thank those who have given their time and their money to the school district. Could I get a motion to accept the consent agenda? - So moved. - Okay, Miss Beloyed. A second? - Second. - Miss Daniels. Any discussion? All right. This will be a roll call vote. I'll ask the secretary to call the roll. - Arcand? - Here. - I mean, oh, I got that.
003Aye. - Beloyed? - Aye. - Daniels? - Aye. - Ellison? - Aye. - Skaar? - Aye. - All right, now we have accepted that. We're gonna move on to the public forum B1. This is a time for the public portion of the meeting. There was one request to speak. The public forum allows three minutes per speaker with the understanding that our speaker this evening will communicate to the board. You have three minutes. We will get cards. So when 1 minute remaining, you'll get the orange card. And then when there's 30 seconds, you'll get the yellow card. At the end of three minutes I will gavel and you will be done. So, we also wanna remind you that when you come up, you can take one of the two seats right up here in front. We
004wanna also remind you that while speaking we will maintain the school district policy on data privacy laws precluding personnel and student matters or data being discussed publicly. Dr. K? - Thank you, Chair Arcand. Members of the board. Tonight we celebrate students who have represented the district in cheerleading, alpine ski, gymnastics, and wrestling. Congratulations students and thank you to the staff and family members who supported the students along the way. Go Bears. (light music) - Congratulations to all the members there. We know that a lot of time and effort went in for them to get to those honors. So, moving on, I would like to move on to informational items C2, Superintendent's report with Dr. Kazmierczak. - All right, thank you Chair Arcand. Members of the board. So brief update tonight. First of all, the summertime
005community services catalog will arrive in community members' mailboxes in mid-March. The catalog highlights opportunities available to residents of all ages as the weather turns warmer. The publication also includes the Bears Bulletin, which covers a variety of district-related news and information. While the weather has made a turn for the better in recent weeks, we want to make sure our community members know the high school field house walking track remains open from 6:00 to 9:00 PM Monday to Thursday through the end of May. There is no cost, but we do ask those who participate to wear clean, dry shoes. And as I end my update this evening, I'd like to wish our students, families, and staff a great spring break next week. I hope everyone finds time to relax and recharge as we gear up for the
006final third of the school year. Came fast. Yeah? - [Arcand] I don't think I'll be using the walking track anytime soon. Sorry. So, all right. The next item we have is informational item C3. Mr. Shavers, American Indian Parent Advisory Committee, resolution of concurrence or non concurrence. - [Shavers] Good evening Chair Arcand and members of the board. Every year around this time, so March 1st, is a deadline that our American Indian Education program has to, or parent committee has to identify if we are going to be concurrent or not for the school year. - Just a little closer, just a little closer. - So as, so every year that vote takes place in February during their monthly meeting. This year for the first time since I've been with the district here for the past two years,
007we've been non concurrent. This year the vote was successfully concurrent for all six goal areas that were present, which was exciting for our department as well as for our district. So Ms. Danielle DeLong, which is the chair, was unable to come this evening due to scheduling conflicts, but I just wanted to share that with you so that you had that information. Any questions? - [Arcand] Any questions from anyone? Yes, Ms. Ellison? - Just a comment to say thank you to Mr. Shavers and members of the APAC and families for working through the non concurrence from last year and getting to the point where there's a concurrent vote this year. I know that that takes a lot of time and effort and so I'm grateful to everybody who was involved with that. So thank you. -
008I would like to, I know Vincent Patton is here as well. He is our American Indian ed coordinator. I know I worked a lot with him this summer to go through the reasons for the non concurrent last year and provide the opportunities for our district staff to get involved in additional training, which was one of their requests. - [Arcand] Okay. Mr. Skaar. - Yeah, the difference between concurrence and non concurrence, what's the significance there that now that we're concurrent? - [Shavers] Well, a non concurrence vote, which we had the previous two years, we actually have a, we have to put a plan together in place on how we're going to address the areas that they felt we were deficient in and then move towards correcting that. - [Skaar] Okay, I see. Thank you. - So
009the concurrent vote means we do not have to submit that plan. - [Skaar] Great, thank you. How many American Indian students do we have in the district? - [Shavers] Vincent, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but 25 at the high school level, 20 at the middle school, and 30 approximately at the elementary. So, and that's an interesting one. That's one that changes year to year as well. We really are encouraging and Vincent's doing a really good job with that as well, encouraging families to identify or register as American Indian through a 516 form. So they are identifying that way in documentation so that additional funding can come in as well. - [Skaar] Thank you. - Any other questions? Well, thank you for your time. - [Shavers] Thank you. - Okay, at this time we'd
010like to go on to our discussion items. We'd like to go discussion item D1, elementary specialists, Dr. Gillespie and Ms. Babiash. - [Gillespie] Good evening chair. Our community members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak. Tonight. Me and Ms. Babiash are here to talk to you about our elementary specialist program, update you on where we've been, and then we have a recommendation that we'll ask for action later on in tonight's meeting. So I wanted to take you on a little timeline of where we've been the past few years. We actually came to the board at the end of the 22-23 school year and shared some results from a CAREI review. The Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement helped us with the review around our specialist program. We really wanted to make sure we got staff input,
011family input around what were strengths for us, but also what were opportunities in terms of that programming. Then in 23-24, based on the results of the CAREI review, we implemented elementary art. We had done things in the past with our partnership with the center, help me. - [Babiash] Wiper Center for the Arts. - [Gillespie] Thank you. I was gonna get stuck. And we implemented some sort of art experience in every one of our elementary schools. And that ranged from full year of art as part of the specialist rotation to art experiences. And a lot of that had to do with, you know, what we were able to do in terms of our world language program, which is what I'm gonna talk about a little while later. We had some challenges in filling some last minute
012openings with world language. And so some of our schools have had art full time for the past couple of years. We also started that year, 23-24, orchestra moved to starting in sixth grade. If you remember those conversations. This year, our current reality is still that each one of our elementary schools has some sort of art experience, but it's not consistent in terms of some having a year long. Others are having, even residents come in. Willow Lane, Vadnais Heights and Otter Lake are elementary schools that do not have elementary world language. The other ones do currently. We also, if you recall, at the end of the 23 school year, we talked a little bit about elementary media and how to continue to build up that program. And so we did this year hire an additional elementary
013media specialist. There was funding allocated for that from the state. And so we have a one to three ratio. So we have one media specialist per every three elementary schools, but they also have media clerks as part of that elementary media team. So when I came to present to you at the end of May of 23, I talked about three action steps that we would have as an organization. And I want to give you an update of where we were there. We talked about art already, that we would start that in 23-24. Art has received overwhelming support from and praise from students, staff, families. It's been really wonderful to see and it's something that people talk about often as a positive that we added to our programs. In addition to the staffing that I just
014talked about for elementary media specialists, that team of specialists and clerks support student learning by offering a lot of different things. Leading book clubs, teaching digital safety, providing training for staff and students. We're also making a concerted effort to include more STEM, science, technology, engineering and math, in our elementary schools. And that's done through our media program. So it's been really exciting to see things, robotics stations for K-5 students and that's really continuing to grow. Additionally, in May, we talked about that we were gonna examine our world language models and including language immersion, which as you know, we will be starting at two schools, kindergarten, elementary, Spanish dual immersion in the fall at Matoska International and Otter Lake. These are some recent pictures of the work. We are definitely leaning in, recruiting students, supporting families
015in enrollment. And then our staff is working really hard on the curriculum for our kindergartners next year. So I wanted to review just briefly what the CAREI survey said because we use that to guide decisions throughout the past few years. Strengths from that survey were that there's a high level of student engagement in our specialist classes. And then really families very much appreciate the specialist offerings that we had. Areas for improvement or things that we really leaned into was there was an absolute overwhelming desire to add art into our programming. A need to organize our specialist schedules across buildings. It can be really complex as you look at people who travel between buildings. Our elementary principals work really hard around making sure that we meet the needs of our students. But it also is a
016schedule that's manageable for our staff and we continue to look at that each year. And then really most staff and families echoed that they want our students to have even more movement throughout the day. So we've added things like more flex time at each one of our elementary schools, really looking at how we're creating movement in other areas, but knowing that PE is valued extensively by our community. Another thing that we asked was what is best practice in specialist scheduling? When I reached out to our neighboring districts at the time, we were the first to embark on this for quite some time. And so how to really, the complexities around this, how to make sure we're making the best decisions. And really what came out overwhelmingly from research was that we really listened to student
017and family input in terms of the types of offerings, but also know that we have state statute and standards that we need to implement into our elementary programming. Our survey, we did an online survey, we received really great response that was representative of all our schools, all our grade levels. 873 is a large response in terms of, as CAREI was looking at, is this something that we can really lean into and be confident that it represents voices across our district. We also were very happy that it was representative in terms of racial and ethnic identity and students and families who qualify for supports in terms of special education. So again, 84% agree, 84% of parents agreed that their child enjoys going to specialists. They really wanted a variety of opportunities for their students and families
018were satisfied with the schedule and rotation. Areas for us, we're adding art, increasing movement, increasing communication between specialist teachers and families, which we really talk about across the board. And then increasing inclusion for students in special education. This is, if you remember the, we asked families beyond required music and physical education, which areas of content would you like? And art, physical education, STEAM, music. But art came out really as something that people wanted and it was number one in terms of the area to add into our specialist rotation. So our recommendation moving forward will be, and as I worked with a team and I'd like to thank our elementary principals, it's been really complex to really dive into this, was I needed us to have consistent offering of art at each elementary school. I understand
019why we started with some inconsistencies, but it seems like based on the response from our survey and the experience that our students are having, that we need to make sure that there's consistency across our schools and that we utilize the CAREI survey in terms of highlighting and really amplifying family and staff voice in our programming decision. So the recommendation that I'll be asking for action on later on today is that beginning in the 25-26 school year will have physical education, music, and art at each one of our elementary schools. Then at Matoska International and Otter Lake, the schools that we're adding immersion to that they will have physical education, music and a rotation between art and Spanish. The why behind that is art was identified as I've already mentioned, as a top choice of our
020families. We really looked at could it, is it feasible to offer a four rotation, meaning having world language, art, PE, and music at each one of our schools. And it isn't, in terms of our current budgetary parameters, that would add at least additional five FTEs, which is not what our budget can have right now. And we also would be concerned about the decrease in physical education because you add, you know, it's like you add one more day into the rotation, that limits the physical movement for students. And that would be contrary to what our families have asked for. We still obviously are really committed to world language as we are adding a Spanish immersion program and we remain dedicated to our world language education in middle and high school. And then Spanish being an integral
021part of the programming at Matoska and Otter Lake, we talked a lot about one, what does that look like for a consistent unifying experience for all students at that those schools, even families who maybe don't choose immersion and providing a second language experience is also a key requirement for IB, International Baccalaureate, which is ano another program that we have at Matoska. So it seemed like having those two schools set up similarly and then the rest of our seven elementaries with PE, music and art made the most sense for us as we really looked at feasibility in terms of financial and then the feedback from our families. What questions might you have for me and or Jen? - Thank you, do we have any questions? Mr. Skaar? - Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. Is world
022language, is that a state mandate? - [Gillespie] It's not in terms of elementary and it really, it isn't across the board. What it is, is it's often a requirement for students when they're applying for four year colleges. And so we offer those experiences for sure in the middle school and high school. But it's not a state required. - So when you're talking about world language, you're just talking about we offer students different, you know, different ways to learn different languages. French, German, Spanish. Is there any other ones besides those three? - Yeah, we have American Sign Language, French and Spanish as the three that we offer. And they're elective choices for students. So they can choose in eighth grade if they wanna take that. Otherwise they choose anywhere but from ninth through 12th. - Do
023we think that having that, having this world language priority helps the K through five and reading in general to get our reading scores up or there's not much of a connection? - That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that. I would have to talk with, it's perhaps prior when we were able to have a more consistent programming. But it has been difficult to maintain the staffing in terms of when we have last minute openings, world language, which is a hard one to find people to. - Okay, thank you. Thanks. - Any other questions? Well thank you, we'll see you back when we bring it back to a vote on it. Alright, we're going on to discussion item D2. This will be the first reading of school board policies 420, 427, 508, 533,
024701, 704, 721. Normally we look at these together, so if you have a question on one, if you can let us know the page number that you have the question on. Just so you know that these policies will be brought back on April 14th for us to make a vote to approve this. So do we have any questions on those policies? Mr. Skaar? - I had one on the, it was the federal grant one and I'm sorry I can't get the page because it had to do with cybersecurity. You guys know where that page, what that page number is? I just had it, but anyways, when I read the cybersecurity part, I thought, well this is really more like a date of privacy rather than cybersecurity. So I would ask staff to go back and
025look at that and you know, reconcile it. Oh, thank you. Sorry, I didn't have my mic on. I'm still learning in this, in our new digs here. But anyways, it didn't seem like it was a cybersecurity requirement or a cybersecurity policy. It was more like data privacy. So I would go back and maybe kind of take a look at that to get it focused more on cybersecurity, which is protecting our systems from, you know, people that want to do our systems harm, steal our money, steal our information, things like that. - [Ellison] It's policy, it's policy 721. - 721. Right. - [Ellison] Starting page 88 of the board packet. - Right, 721-8. I just found it. Right. I would just recommend going back and looking at that, squaring it up with actual, with cybersecurity policies
026or protocols, those types of things as opposed to just data privacy. - I'm looking for the... Yeah, but I'm looking for the- - There you go. - So follow up, chair. So follow up on that. So that, that section then that's highlighted. I'm looking at page 96 in the board packet, section C. My guess is that that comes from changes in statute. - Your statute or MSBA recommended change. Yep. Yeah, but we can look at that. Okay. - Any other questions? - I would just add, do we have a cybersecurity policy here? - We do, yeah, we do. - Okay. - By policy you mean insurance policy or do you mean policy, policy? - No, policy. Policy. We can talk about that. - Okay, and then, and once again, if there's any other further questions?
027This will come back on April 14th and so we can look at that and then have that ready to go when we vote on it. That brings us to operational item E1, action on a bid for central middle school security package. Mr. Wald. - Good evening Chair Arcand, members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak. Tonight I have the phase two bid package for central middle school security upgrade. Phase one was completed in 2022 by Allstate Communications and at that point we knew we would have additional renovations and new space brought online renovated spaces in that we would do a phase two. This is a pretty small percentage of the security package at Central Middle School. It's the final package. We had a bid opening on February 25th. We had two bidders for the project. One was
028ECSI, they were the high bid, and Allstate Communications who did the first phase of the project was the low bid. The recommendation is to accept the overall bid for the central middle school security package as presented in the amount of $323,700 to Allstate Communications Incorporated. - So the recommended action in front of us is to accept the overall bid for Central middle school security package as presented in the amount of 323,700 to Allstate Communication Incorporated. Do I have a motion to accept the bid? - So moved. - Ms. Ellison. Do I have a second? - Second. - Second by Ms. Daniels. Do we have any discussion? - I have some questions. - Mr. Skaar. - A couple of questions. This was not included in the construction budget with Krauss Anderson, something separate? - [Wald] No,
029this is included in the construction budget. - Oh it is? - [Wald] Yeah. - Okay. - [Wald] It's just we installed some of it early on and then the parts that needed to wait, we waited until it happened this summer, when we're doing the final phase of renovation. - Did we have someone do a risk assessment of the security prior so did that fed into the bid process? - [Wald] Yeah, that's a good question. We had True North work with us on evaluating our buildings and then they put together security recommendations and those are implemented across our buildings. So what we're gonna install at Central is consistent with what we've done at all of our other buildings. - Do we use just, I was just thinking about this. Do we use like the law enforcement
030to review the plan or not necessary? - [Wald] Not to review the plan. We work with what the standards for school security and meet or exceed those standards. And then our police department has worked with us on our sites walking through the sites and evaluating. So they have a plan on if we're called into this site, what are, you know, what things do we need to know? We have boxes on the outside of our building so the police have security to all of our sites. - Thank you. - Any further questions? Okay, we have a motion in front of us to accept the overall bid for Central Middle School for 323,700 to Allstate Communications. I'll ask the clerk to call the role. - Arcand? - Aye. - Beloyed? - Aye. - Daniels, aye. Ellison? -
031Aye. - Skaar. - Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. - [Wald] Thank you. - Next on operating item is E2, action on the elementary specialists. Welcome back Dr. Gillespie. - Chair Arcand, members of the board. Earlier this evening, I presented a recommendation on our elementary specialist program. So the recommendation would be that you approve the recommendation as presented. - [Arcand] Okay, so we have a recommended action. Do we have a motion? - [Ellison] So moved. - [Arcand] Ms. Ellison. A second? - [Skaar] Second. - [Arcand] Second by Mr. Skaar. Any discussion? Yes, Ms. Daniels? - I just wanna say I have people, little people in the district that are gonna be very excited about this. They're very much art families and something that they, I know that they've really enjoyed the units they've had so far
032and want more of it. So, and their school didn't have, you know, before. So I'm really excited about it for families. - Other questions? The one thing that goes off in my mind is as we continue to talk about student engagement, and there's nothing, when you go into that art class, you can see a lot of student engagement a lot of the times as the kids use their creativity to create and dream. And I think that's something that helps in all the classes that they do, that they learn to start even to problem solve for doing that. So I feel it's important. So thank you. - [Gillespie] Thank you. - [Arcand] Any further questions or comments? Okay. This will be a voice vote. So, all in favor of recommended the approving the elementary Specialist program
033adjustments as presented, say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed? Same side. Motion carried. Thank you very much. And then on operation item E3, we're bringing back the action on school board policies 505, 599, 610, 999 for approval. We usually do those again. So can we get a motion to approve these? - So moved. - Okay, Ms. Daniels, a second? - Second, - Second by Ms. Beloyed. Discussion? Hearing none, this again will be a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed? Same sign. Motion carries. We are now on to our board forum. This is a time for board members to share anything that's going on and that they've been involved with in the community. Anybody wanna share anything for board forum? - Nothing. - What's that? - I said not today.
034- I do wanna share one thing is, as we're sitting in this room, I have to thank the members of our community through their agreeing for this construction. We're able to create this board room and we're hoping that it's a more friendly place where people can come in and come to the board meeting. This could not have been done without the members of our community. So on behalf of everyone, I want to thank everybody who supported this and got that in there. And so that we have this to share with the community. The only other thing I wanna say is I just am very feeling very blessed with all the support as I have. If you haven't noticed, if you see me try to walk, I have my third ankle surgery and I've got a
035lot of support and a lot of people, you know, volunteering to push me or push me off my scooter. I'm not sure. (all chuckling) But that, yeah, it's just nice that people care. And that's been, I'm very thankful as, and this is why I have lived in White Bear my life and this is why I stay in White Bear because this is a great place to live and get educated, work and play. So thank you for that. Anybody else? With that, we are ready for, I can go to the adjournment. Can I make a motion to adjourn? - Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn. - Okay. Is there a second? - Second. - Second by Beloyed. All in favor of adjournment, say aye. - [All] Aye. - Opposed? Same sign. Now adjourned. Thank you everyone.