March 28, 2022 - School Board Work Session Meeting

001(bright upbeat music) - I think those drywall guys must discuss everything they see in one of those curves. (group laughing) - A lot of curve cuts, can't say please. - So then for South Campus. - Ready. - So we've got a couple of drone shots here a few things that you'll see going on in there. We got roof deck that's going in on the new office and addition entry area. They've got a lot of the exterior framing there at that new office and entry area complete as well as that overhead shot of the new addition. I don't know if guys see the overall footprint of that new storm shelter in the classroom area space, kind of on the inside, which you can't see necessarily from the drone, but they've got final grading of the sand

002cushion that's taken place in inside the storm shelter and they've got that concrete slab pour back as well. And then on the roof of that storm shelter, so they've got a concrete deck that's actually been poured for that as well. They've got a lot of 10 feet going on in that building still. Unfortunately, hoping to be done with that soon, but trying to drive the frost down so they can start getting the MEP underground going. Roofing of that storm shelter is also gonna be ongoing, they're gonna be doing that along about the same time as that office addition, and then demo on the inside as well. So inside the existing classroom that's been completed, that's the portion that's connected to the office addition. And then demo has also been completed in the new science rooms

003along with the new associated underground plumbing. So then once they get that underground plumbing, they'll get that poured back and then they'll be able to start framing. So in the next couple weeks here, we'll have some walls and spaces to look at. On North Campus, we've got, go to the next picture this is- - The next one. - There you go, so on that precast shot, those two photos there, they've got 159 pre-cast panels that make up that field house. Each panel weighs about 30,592 pounds, so that's over 4.8 million pounds or about 325 school buses. Around the exterior as well in one of the previous two photos, so they've got a lot of brick going up around the exterior as you can see the right photos, actually the construction lab and auto shop and

004that exterior brick there, but when it's all said and done, there's gonna be over 1.5 million bricks used on this building. In total working hours so far, they've got 45,000 into it and about another 260,000 water bill just a little bit, just a few years worth of hours there. As far as some of the interior though, they've got framing and areas N, M and L. So inside that three storey, which you can't see from the drone is about 115 people pretty much on every single floor of that building working on framing MEP rough ends above ceiling and in walls. They've got a lot of backing and blocking as well, they need to get the one side of the dry wall actually finished, so be able to walk through and start seeing the spaces take shape.

005Wire proofing, so it's not as exciting but very important. We've got that almost wrapped up through every floor, which once that's done that kind of releases a lot of extra interior work to get going. You still see some yellow, still be seeing yellow for quite a while as we go around that exterior, but they're working on that sheathing, roof blocking and roofing, and pretty much all of those areas. So you can see the metal deck now, so we're currently working on getting the roofing insulation and all that stuff watertight. And then on the field house, some of the things you can't see necessarily inside, but they've got all the steel erection and detailing done and they've actually got just about all of the decking done, placed on that as well, but they're working on CMU

006stair towers. And then once we get the roof on that part, then we'll start doing the underground MEP and then it'll really start taking shape. Some of the auxiliary stuff that we got going is concession stand, so pretty much the entire structure of that is just about wrapped up. They've got a little bit of steel decking and detailing to do it, and then we'll get the roof on and then we'll start working on finishing that out. Area G around the existing building, which is kind of the west side of the existing two storey there that butts it up to the new three storey, working on doing some of the demo and windows and getting some of those openings cut in, so there's quite a few different connections through each of the existing building into the

007new spaces that they're working on doing that kind of two windows at a time throughout the whole, basically all the way around that building. And then an area Q working on MEP demo in the south locker rooms and then the boiler we're getting a lot of stuff wrapped up with flue, really graphic. (bright upbeat music) - Only AJ can build a building like that and also fly a drone really. (group laughing) Well, might be a more fun party. - I think you gotta get into the drone footage though, I'd like to see you down there maybe (indistinct). - Y'all drive away from that. - Oh, there we go. Provide some good perspective of how massive it is. So operating our maintaining construction project while we have school of the buildings, is no small tasks, we

008still have 1100 kids and 150 staff members reporting in that building every day. And so we've been working really close with Carlos Anderson to make that process work and hats off to the North Campus teachers and staff and administrators who have really hung in there through, not all of which has been super pleasant and to the students as well at North Campus 'cause we know that that's not always pleasant going to school under construction so. There have been some challenges that we've been addressing the last few weeks specific to concerns around air control, 'cause construction can get stinky too. And so, some of those things becomes diesel fumes because there's a lot of leaves outside that need to get equipment up on those roofs and those are diesel operated or diesel run machines. And so

009those fumes can be a bit of a problem, so it's been some trial and error trying to figure out how to make sure we keep those fumes away from the building as much as we can, and then taring roofs, taring is a pretty stinky job and we found out there is a way to make it less stinky. And so we've been working with contractors to figure that out and so we think we've got the tar thing pretty figured out. We also hired a third party to come in and do some air quality testing. We had been testing and Carlos Anderson took it upon themselves to test the air quality in those rooms that are near the construction zone on a daily basis. And we hired a third party to come in and test the air

010too just to make sure that our tests are working, Carlos Anderson's tests are working and that everyone agrees on these test results. And the third party felt really good about that, that the air is very safe in those spaces. It doesn't always smell like flowers, sometimes it stinks. And so there have been times we've had to relocate some teachers to different parts of the building for a day or maybe multiple days that's been a real challenge. And so again, we thank our teachers for hanging in there with us, the South campus administrators are on top of it and then Kevin Fernandez is our project manager, and Dan Rodger, director of building operations, they've been on top of it and AJ's team in North Campus. So we met with a group of teachers, Tiffany Dietrich with

011Teachers Association has been really engaged in this process and we've been communicating with her. Tomorrow we're gonna be meeting with that whole staff just to kind of review where we're at with that process and keep the communication open and keep the project moving forward. - Yes, Beloyed. - One of my sons is actually at North Campus and it must not be too bad because I haven't, it's been crickets, I haven't heard anything from him and he would definitely tell me if he was smelling something or hearing something, so it must not be incredibly bad. - Well, on the third factor is noise, sometimes there's some noise issues too. There's construction guys aren't as cohesive as you think they might be. - We've been trying to find the drill silencers. - Yeah. (group laughing) Well, and

012AJ to tell us if noise is a problem, you let me know, I can get that shut down right away. And for the most part, I mean, they think our staff understands, we gotta keep the project moving and so we put up with what we have to put up with and if it's unbearable, then we need to address it and figure out a different plan. So we've been doing that almost on a daily basis. - Ms. Streiff Oji. - I was just out of place in North Campus today and Central so I saw both sides of the noise and I was just so impressed with how they're using the space and how they're using the, like the media center that just... and their attitudes were so good just, it'll be worth it when it's done.

013I was, yeah, some experience. - Yeah, it's coming along really great. Like you said, over 300 people working at factory everyday. - Yeah, I mean, generally we're right around 160 and it can fluctuate by as much as 50, depending on what the- - With a couple 100 people in some days, yeah, amazing. - Ms. Daniels. - Have you had any weather delays or anything? I know you talked about being there at seven o'clock, but I'm just wondering either that way or Spring is coming and there's all kinds of things to think about that. - Yeah, I mean, when we have weather delays, usually we just pick up that time either and all the time we're working on weekends, so we work on what we can get so. - Wow. - And invite it with hundreds

014of millions of 18 years that we've cranked it. - Make your own weather. - Yep. - Okay. - Well, thank you so much for all of your work and for your updates. - Thank you for having us, have a good evening. - Yes, thank you, thanks. We'll move on to discussion item B2, FY '22-'23 Budget Adjustments, Mr. Wald. - Okay, should I take that? I only have a few slides here, but thank you. All right, Chair Ellison, members of the board, our student representatives, thanks for being with us tonight and all my colleagues we were with, we presented at the last board meeting, the March 14th board meeting budget cuts and the board members had a lot of questions and we had some good discussion that night. So tonight we'll review those again and then

015a later action item tonight will be for you to approve the proposed budget adjustments for '22-'23. So last month, and really multiple times throughout this winter, we talked about these Budget Adjustment Guiding Principles. We identified these before we started the process. What are gonna be the ground rules for how we move forward? And we identified our highest priority looking to minimize, yeah, I'm not gonna be good at that so, to minimize the impact on the classroom. And so we've had previous rounds of budget adjustments the past few years, and we've done a pretty good job of holding true to that. In fact, when you look at '21-'22, ECSU Metro class size study, we're among the lowest of school districts when it comes to average class size. So we told you, I think the last ground

016that we were gonna really try our best to stay away from anything that impacts the classroom. We made some administrative changes and adjustments, we made some finance, we used the finance tools that we could use of which there's not a lot remaining that we can use, but there are some, and we're able to keep those away from the classroom. This time, we'll see, that's not gonna be quite as easy at the elementary school level, we're not gonna see much impact there in terms of classroom impact we're gonna stay within our pre COVID classroom class size and averages. At the secondary where, actually our staffing levels have increased quite a bit over the last number of years, we're gonna see some reductions. We'll still be, we believe around the middle of the ECSU class size study

017in terms of average class sizes. Right now we're near the very lowest inter secondary for class sizes. However, we know that average class size and what might be in any given classroom can vary. And so if we're gonna offer a lot of elective courses with small enrollment, then we're gonna pay for that somewhere else. And so there might be some required courses that have higher average class sizes and elective courses that have lower. And it's a balance for us to find what's the right balance there because we want our students to have lots of choice. And if you're gonna have choice, you're gonna have to have, you're gonna have to balance that out with other courses. And so our students have enjoyed a lot of course choices, and we're gonna try do our best to

018continue with that, but that's a little back balance is trying to, if we don't enough students to run a class, of course, we can't run a class. We can't afford to run a class with 13 students, okay? So secondly, we'll remain committed to our equity commitment, so this has been at the forefront of all of our budget discussions. And I will say with some confidence that if at any point any of us lost track of that, somebody in the room very quickly brought us back to it. And so proud of the team that we worked with who consistently reminded us of our commitment to equity and those aren't always easy things, easy choices and there are things that conversation can be different depending on the topic. But we remained committed to our equity commitment and

019I'm proud of our team for moving through that process. Adjustments will be sustainable for multiple years. So if we're addressing a fund balance issue, sometimes a one time cut can fix unbalanced issue. When you're trying to help fix a structural imbalance in a budget, then you really need sustainable budget adjustments. And so that's what we're really focused on. But we need to get multiple years knowing that in three years time, things will change and we'll be making different decisions on how we keep our budget structured and balanced. And so right now I think these adjustments need to last us at least a few years. Attrition, so attrition will factor into staffing reduction. So there are cost savings when we have a retirement or a resignation of someone who's been with us for a long time

020and they'll be at a higher pay rate than an employee coming in. We predict some of that within our budget and so we factor it in, and we know that we're gonna see some retirements and that outgoing teacher or support staff member is gonna leave us at a higher rate than the incoming person, so there's natural savings there and that's considered in this budget. Staffing across the district are encouraged to share ideas of how to decrease spending and increase revenue. So we spent a lot of time with all of our buildings talking through the budget, the same presentations we did for the board we did for all of our buildings. And so we encouraged discussion and feedback. People shared things that they really value, the commitment to equity is something that our staff across our

021buildings have a strong value for it so. Ideas came up and so we're thankful to our staff for one sitting through budget presentations, but also for them sharing their values and ideas. So our target for the '22-'23 budget adjustments was 3.8 million. - Okay. - That's good. - So again, before we get into specifics on- - Let me ask a question really quickly. Ms. Daniels back on the, encouraged to share ideas, were there any great increased revenue ideas from staff besides that we had this huge space surplus that we haven't done blessed with yet? - Oh, I should have pulled that together. We did have ideas, I wouldn't say there was a lot of revenue producing ideas. Yeah, there weren't a lot of ideas that were gonna generate a lot of savings or a lot

022of revenue. - Yeah, I'm just curious, I know those are conversations to have just wondering if somebody had this brilliant idea. - Yeah, I know, we appreciate it, we encourage people like once we get off this meeting, call us if you wanna discuss it and we'd have people call and say, I just didn't understand this or explain to me this. - Yeah, okay, great anybody else wanna ask a question? - I'm assuming, as you discussed it with staff and having been a world language teacher, I know over the years the ups and downs and how much enrollment impacts and we've changed languages and added them, it's extremely painful. But I think those are some of the things that you get when you have an enriched program. And I'm just wondering, what's the balance, if you

023don't have college in the schools for an advanced language, any language, and then they can go to century and pick up that class, how does that budget balance out when there is a percent, what does that cost us per class when- - Like what does a- - Let's say you have 10 kids that can't take Aboriginal schools, German, what then? - So if we eliminated that CIS course and then the students left us. - Yeah, they would. - Yeah. It would be, I mean, there's a, you lose in that game for sure, it depends, it's a percentage of essentially the state funding so if they went to, essentially, let's say and they did one class there then essentially would lose that percent of their state funding and the university would claim that. It's kind of

024a, it's a win for them, but it's a lot lower tuition than they would charge if that student were paying more than (indistinct). - I know our kids having worked in the high school for 30 years, they're really smart about looking at how they can cut down their freshman year. A lot of kids graduate with a lot of credits and I can see them, it's nice to keep it in the high school if you can. But if you can't, they're still gonna pursue it. And I just wondered what the loss will be. - Yeah, it would be in that $1,200, of course, a year long course (indistinct). - So you'd have to lose a lot to (indistinct). - Yeah, we offer CIS course that's $145 a student is what we're getting for CIS course so.

025It's definitely her advantage to do that. Of course, we're paying the instructor in that case to go to century and century is paying the instructor. - Right. - So they carry all the expense, if its CIS, we carry all the expense. - And I know we used to get, do we still get more VIP kids coming in? 'Cause they don't have a very rich- - Yeah, we get a few, we've had a few, it seems at least one every year coming in on the course. - And I guess my only other question on the FTE's at the secondary level- - Dr. Kazmierczak, can we move into the next slide so that we can- - Sure. - Look through all of your job. - Yeah, so I'll just go through these kind of one at a

026time then we get to each, I'm happy to discuss those. So again, I want to thank all the, not only those who paid attention during presentations, but to our principles, to all of our cabinet members who spent countless hours working on getting us to this point, our school members who sat through a lot of discussions, asked a lot of questions and stayed engaged in this process. Our executive finance committee has had several meetings where we've spent some time on this and have provided great input. So thanks to all those who have been involved. So as we go through these, these are number they're not necessarily prioritized, they're not specific order, they're numbered just for the benefit of talking about. So we go through the, first two are really chargebacks for the general fund. So in

027community ed and nutrition, both of these programs by statute, the revenue is separate from the general fund and so statute allows for us to charge back to those programs where they are using general on resources, let's say, so example might be community ed, custodial time. Community ed has a lot of employees, not all full-time, a lot of part-time employees and uses a lot of human resources department time to manage all of that, and so that amount of time can be covered within as a charge back, same with nutrition services. And so some staffing lunchroom supervision, custodial staff can be charged back from nutrition services through the general funds. So those are really just finance tools that are benefits to the general fund and where we are able to do that in other budgets that makes

028sense to do that. And that's a very common strategy that's used across districts. We probably haven't done it as much in White Bear Lake as we could have and so we've seen more of that in the last few budget funds. Special Education, $179,000. So it's expenditures for special ed typically outpace the spending of our general education programming we're required to meet a level of spending called maintenance of effort. And so that, or just start increases in spending every year certainly meet that maintenance of effort. And so we can actually afford to do some reductions in special ed and still maintain the maintenance of effort. And so we're seeing 179,000 in reductions in special ed that's 1.2 teaching FTE's, 2.5 support staff, and then shifting 30% of LSN to special ed where that's actually generates some

029revenue that we haven't been generating, that we could. So thanks to the special ed team for really working hard to come up with some adjustments in a department that's always feeling like it needs more support. For the restructuring between our teaching and learning and special services department, where we're able to save a $150,000 to price some collaboration there. Technology will be reducing equipment and supply budgets through the $250,000. Shift staff paid by number six, shifts staff paid for by the general fund, unassigned to general fund and bond restricted resources, sometimes project supervision, some with... And so our capital budget can support positions, some technology staff can be paid for out of those funds. And so it allows us do some finance shifts there as well. Number seven, reduce supply and contracted services budget at the

030district center. Eight, we get into some staffing that's reduced eight teaching positions to match our pre COVID class size target and reduce the DLA principal. So this is really a reset to our 2018-'19 class sizes. So as our enrollment has fluctuated, our staff has caught us a little bit, has caught us, staff at a higher level than we really can afford to be and so it's resetting to those 2018-'19 class size target. So our elementary school right now is staffed at a lower level than we targeted for, or excuse me, staffed at a higher level, so lower class sizes than we actually targeted for this year. Number nine, secondary reduced 14 teaching positions. I think at the last meeting, we identified that as 16, that was just actually a typo, the budget reduction was correct,

031it's just it's 14 positions, not 16 at the secondary. And 3.5 gen it's support staff, so that a significant cut at $1,113,000. Again, our secondary class sizes are among the lowest in the Metro Area and we'll see those increase to above the average in the Metro Area. And so principles right now are working on identifying, how they're gonna mostly efficiently staff their building, and they're doing a good job with that work. Secondary revenue increase, there's an increase in athletic fees to just below the conference average, that's about $40,000 that won't be a significant increase, it'll vary by sport and our athletic department did a comprehensive study within our conference of athletic fees and found that that ours were among the lowest and that's great, we don't wanna be among the highest in what we charge

032our students or athletics and so there'll be some revenue increase there. But again, just below the conference average for activities. And to remind folks that there are, there's lots of support for students who can't afford to participate in athletics or feel like they can't, White Bear Lake Ed Foundation actually has several funds that are geared toward just full participation in athletics. It covered not only, let's say the activity fee, although some students won't even be charged an activity fee depending on their income qualifying level, but it might just be like, well, I know my fee is waived, but I can't even afford basketball shoes. Then the education foundation have help with just any cost of participation. And teams do have team fees. And that I referenced that at the last meeting, I think, a $15

033T-shirt or whatever. And so that's just a practice, that could be the practice package that the students keep. So it's not part of their uniform, it's just a practice piece and then it remains the property of the school. Teaching and learning, restructuring the calendar is number 11 for instructional coaches has some software that they felt like is redundant with other software that they have and can do without and so they were able to identify some reductions there to $2,144,000. And then finally transportation that increased the locking radius to one mile for elementary, and 1.5 miles for secondary students, this reduces three plus those, we're currently at 0.5 miles and one mile. And I know this is a topic I've had significant conversation at the last meeting. And I think many board members thought we should

034take another look at that and just understand it better. And so we've done that. Our executive finance committee met with Mike Turitto is with us today, we have some questions for him as well. Reviewed that at some depth that we were able to go through each school's walking distances and what that looks like from a half mile to a mile, and secondary from one mile to a mile and a half, even to two miles. And so our original proposal was two miles for secondary, we're able to do that at one and a half and still meet our target here. And there's another area of concern with transportation that I just think is really important to consider, and probably means we'd be having this conversation even if there was budget implications and that's around our ability

035to hire bus drivers. And so you've heard about districts around us who just haven't been able to run all their routes everyday. And so parents have been getting phone calls at 6:30 in the morning saying, "Sorry, we can't run in your route today, "if you can find another way to get your kid to school, that'd be great." And we haven't had to do that once. However, if you look at how we got cover some routes this year, we're lucky that our transportation office, our office staff also are licensed bus drivers. And so our office staff and mechanics have been on buses almost everyday all year long. And so we've been covering five, six, nine, sometimes more routes than that on a daily basis. And so very concerned, we have an aging bus driver staff that's

036typical across the country as it's been a great kind of second job or retirement job for folks. And as more and more of those people kind of reach that second retirement, there's not been a lot of people to replace them. And so I'm very concerned about the future of transportation, not only in our district, but just across the nation, where the system can support it. So I'm saying that the reduction of three buses means that we have a much better chance of being fully staffed or being able to at least cover with office staff again next year and keep all of our buses on the road on a daily basis. One thing I think was interesting to board members who had a chance to go through all of those visuals and see the walking distance

037was to recognize that we don't ask students to cross hazardous roads. And so when you think of some roads like County Road E being a hazardous road, White Bear Avenue being a hazardous road, Highway 96 and many others, Center road, Otter Lake road, White Midnight road. So we have lots of roads that we're just not gonna ask kids to cross. And so then that half mile or that mile walk distance or one and a half mile walk distance really gets reduced quite a bit and that lots of kids even though they're within the walking distance because there's a hazardous road that separates them from the school, their transportation route, we don't want kids crossing White Bear Avenue in the morning, too many cars, too much traffic, too many people in a hurry, okay? I think

038that is all I was looking through our staffing levels for bus drivers. Earlier today, we're down 30% in the last five years, we have 30% less bus drivers than we did in 2017. So that's the challenge that Turitto and his team at transportation garage have had, just even buses on the road every day. And so sometimes people might get a little frustrated. I called the garage this morning nobody called me back once 'cause they're on buses. - So we'll go back to Dr. Newmaster's question and then this strike OG. - Well, if I can think that far back, I was just looking at the FTE cuts and I think you explained some of it that the FTE's on secondary are classroom teachers and that's mainly related to enrollment as well as class size. From what

039you said, they're not other certified teachers, they're classroom teachers currently? So they're not like a coach or whatever else we do. - Right, right, right. These are primarily classroom teachers. We didn't have cuts within the counseling department, no. - And learning coaching positions are all still solid? - Pretty, yeah, generally speaking, yes. Yeah, we'll still have the instructional coach model for sure. - Well, that was my question on that. And when we get to transportation and I'm allowed, I'll ask the question then too. 'Cause I did get a really good presentation the other day, there's one thing that doesn't match with what we have today. - My question was on the distance zone you had. Is the distance learning academy continuing? - Yeah, it's looking like we're not gonna be able to continue the elementary

040distance learning academy, the commitment from the families it's just been very, it's been like, I think many families are ready to get their kids back to school. And we know there are some families that probably would prefer stay in distance learning. But our response from our distance learning families has been pretty light. - I think, okay, I've had personal with Mike Turitto, personal experiences and see how he not only covers, but makes sure the culture on the buses are really good, so he's a rockstar and hearing that you're down 30% is amazing to me that he's continue to run so thank you. - Christina. - It's just kind of comment along the lines of the teacher reductions and in the support staff reduction and three and eight and nine just saying that I know I

041trust that administration and directors and supervisors have gone over everything with the fine tooth and I know these are really difficult decisions when you reduce teachers and staff that we know and we work side by side with, and I just wanna thank you for those tough decisions. And I know later on any operational items, we have to make some changes and those are difficult with people that have been dedicated to the district and are hardworking and things like that. So I just know these are difficult times and we've been through it before and sometimes we get lucky enough that things change, like you said in two or three years and we can make those changes back or whatever, we can be hopeful it's not gonna be forever. - I think in earlier discussions, we've been

042hopeful that the legislature will come through with additional funds and we still don't know the answer to that, but we're moving forward expecting that- - Hope. - And they may not or even, they're making less and less progress. - I know. - But most. - I guess wanna say having been in that situation before, where you're struggling with, where are these cuts gonna come from and are real people with real dedicated purposes for our families and our kids. So I wanna comment, I know it's difficult. - Yeah, our principals put a lot of heart and soul in hiring just the right people. So we don't wanna lose any of those really talented people. - Any questions, Catrina? - I just wanna say that we had a, I know Angela was there too and there was

043an awesome presentation at the transportation department last week. And I was impressed with the people who also have their driving license that work there and their work waits for them when they get back after running their route, so that's above and beyond the call of duty. And we got a packet with all of the hazardous routes and greater minds and mine have looked at the dangers. And my only question in Mr. Turitto, maybe can answer this, but we did get notes on boundary information and it said, walk, boundary distances were calculated and it talked about how far they were and I thought maybe that meant what was going to be required this year, but maybe that's what was last year. 'Cause it said K2 was a half a mile. And those are the ones I'm

044really worried about the little ones. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, those are currently what we have. - Okay, so we're going from a half mile to a mile for all kindergarten? - Yeah, I think our policy calls for a three quarter mile for grades three to five and that's a really efficient, pretty efficient to have a half mile K2 and a three quarter mile three, five, because we've had siblings and... So in practicality it's probably been closer to the half mile for K5. - Yeah, that's about what my kids walk from the daycare to Oneka, but I'm thinking a mile is a long distance for little kids, especially the struggling early grade kids that you're older pack is ahead of the pack. But anyway, I'm thinking safety wise, so this is last year's reality from households

045to the edge of the school as the article said. But this year you're rounding it up to a mile for everybody? - Yeah, yeah, so that's what the proposal is. - Okay, so this was this, okay, thank you. - Ms. Thompson. - I just had, so for the special education reductions, where are we reducing those, is that part of the email you sent us explain or is that... - Yep, so some of that is through attrition, so retirements and then the unrequested leave that we'll be talking about is reduction in our motor team. So we're maybe cutting back on one person in the motor team and that gets us consistent with our Metro Area caseloads. And then they have a really nice model where they invest in the peer educators and the teachers, and do

046more of a consultation model. So we're kinda looking at how that work looks to make sure that we continue to provide that high level of service. - You said motor team? - That would be our like our physical therapist, our occupational therapist and our physically impaired teacher. - Well, so then I just have a question regarding the email that had talked about the ALC school. Is that part of these reductions or was that just a separate? - It's included in the secondary. - In the secondary? - Mm-hmm. - 'Cause for me that, I mean, and I understand these are all very difficult decisions, but I find that giving those students more time alone, I have an issue with just because those are students who usually typically need to have guidance continually to ensure that they

047stay on track and that they're not, following them past that may lead them, like we're leaving them alone and they're not getting as much instruction time and we're giving them more personal study time, to me that tends to not always be a good thing. - The hours that there would be more personal study time are hours that are less attended right now, so we would still have the hours that, Gretchen is still looking at different options, but they wouldn't be losing that personalized options that they receive right now, I agree with you that we don't want the students to lose what they have right now, but really thinking creatively about first hour and sixth hour and where students are having to leave because of work or having to make sure that there's still options for

048them for learning and making sure that they're successful. So we do have a lot of kids there that can be successful with some of that more flexibility in that and they have to leave because of work that they have outside commitments. So how do we create that flexibility there while they're still being successful? But these are what Gretchen's looking at right now with their staff are really a couple of hours that are hours that students are struggling to come to more consistently, but there is kind of that core at least right now, it changes cause I wanted for sure that her staff gets to partner together and really think through it, but what can we do to make sure we are providing that support 'cause we don't, we want our kids to for sure continue

049moving forward successfully. - Well, that's good to hear. - We did a- - It's more like the tech school too, 'cause those students are coming and going and there's all different so, and that makes me- - We did a study of staffing and program costs of ALCs across the Metro Area and found that we have a really expensive model over in ALC. And so we can continue to offer really good programming or at our area learning center, but we need to be really mindful that the programs has gotten very expensive and it's just gotta be in mind. And so there's some, there'll be some changes and the goal is still to support those kids fully. - Yes, this is where I started in my career, the administrator, it's super near and dear to my heart.

050I'm really excited about looking at the program, but also I understand it's hard for sure. - Paul and I figured the work was well thought out so I just appreciate like the explanation that's awesome absolutely. - And Ellison and Principal Gretchen Herman, have been working really closely together on this and absolutely great ideas. And I'll make sure that that program continues just knock that out of the park. - Well, they have an amazing staff that I really think will come up with great ideas with Gretchen and then whatever we can do to support, but we want to have multiple paths for our kids to earn their diploma and make sure that we're not losing kids. So I think we have a lot of opportunity here, so that's great, yeah. - And just on the side

051note, the transportation presentation was fantastic and the work that you all do there, and again, tell the drivers, I can't appreciate 'em enough, but I don't know how you've done it, but you have, and it was pretty mind blowing to see the intricacies and everything that goes into the work that you guys do there and it really is, I'm amazed that we have been able to do what we've done this year, is awesome. - Great staff, thank you. - Yeah, it was great. - I forgot to ask this when we had a transportation meeting, if we're down 30%, was any of that due to COVID and would any of that 30% be coming back? - A little bit? - Okay. - A little bit but probably not. - I mean, obviously an older subset that's-

052- They're probably not coming back. - They're not coming back probably because they let their license and lapse their CDLs and so forth so, relicensed probably won't. - Staying on, living in the township for many, many years there's a lot of those sidewalk areas. And so I know you can't say, okay, you're in the township, so you with no sidewalk so you get to, I just wanna say there's some areas where I will worry a little bit about the kids walking and hopefully there's be a age range where there's surprising younger kids. I mean, we have a lot of things we worry about at night right as moms, because our district is so big and our bridges so, these paths just to school there isn't- - Yeah, we have something to think of Otter, Otter

053is in the township and it has Otter Lake Road going through, which is a hazard. So that is still insecure- - Yes, the Otter roads and hazard and there's busy street, but these are things we can think about, I know these are tough, like I said, tough decisions well thought out, but. - We have a path that leads into Otter Lake from the back, so that serves a lot of those. Also back there, we maintain that. - Right. - But remember too, wasn't out of one of the ones that really after we looked at all the hazards, the walking, it would really shrunk down the kids that would actually walking was- - It was mainly the kids in the school that had access to the lock path to get to schools where it had- -

054It did not. - I mean, that seemed to be the circumstance for all of our elementary schools say Oneka because Oneka has got the biggest walkable area. I mean, I live a half mile from Oneka and I see all of the kids walking in packs to school from all different directions. It's very walkable in Hugo at least upon the west side of 61, but then you get to North Star and most of those kids are gonna get bus because they all have to cross 61 where they're all south of that so it's, after the presentation, I felt much, much better about the elementary students walking that distance and even the secondary students because of those certain roads where you can't cross, it created those areas where it looks like they're gonna be walking really, really

055long distances, but it shrunk that down, so I appreciate everything you guys put together, that was incredibly helpful. - Any final questions? - I appreciate all this work- - I do have one. - Okay, go ahead, yeah. - At the secondary level is this, I thought I asked this at the previous meeting, 'cause this is this middle school level or high school level, these FTEs? Is it majority one or the other? - I would say maybe a little more at the middle school because we have a large class leaving eighth grade. So a class leaving eighth grade and the class coming in sixth are announced. So they're losing more than they're gaining in that case. North Campus on the other hand is gonna have the largest number of students that's had a long time. We're

056actually seeing an increase of staffing at North Campus. - Okay. - Well, thank you for all this. These are really painful decisions that involve real complains on all sides. And so I've been grateful for all this work. And I thank you again to Mr. Turitto, I feel much better seeing the maps. So thank you, all right. With that, we'll move to discussion item B3, School Board Communication Protocols Overview, Dr. Kazmierczak. - Right, thank you Chair Ellison. Mick Waldspurger is here, you know, Mick, he is here to provide an overview on sober communication (indistinct) I'll let him jump in. - I feel so far away. - I know this is a long table. - I know, well, good evening, everybody. It's good to see you again. I have some handouts and I have some extras, if

057anybody in the audience would like some, I think there are 15 copies, so making sure the board members get a copy and then we can give you up others as well. It's kind of a follow up to some earlier discussion we've had where we wanna to make sure that we had a clear understanding of the school board's role and responsibilities, and not only for the board to have that understanding, but also for the public to have that understanding as we move forward. And we also wanted to talk about some communication protocols, in other words, ways to communicate to the public about certain matters that might be outside of this scope of your authority as school board members. And so that's really the purpose of today. It's a truncated version of my general presentation on the

058rights and roles and responsibilities of school board members. In terms of responsibilities on the bottom page one, you'll see that the statute defines your responsibilities, school facilities ranging for transportation, which you've just discussed today, prescribing textbooks, curriculum evaluation, levying for funds, something else that comes up in discussion, paying your claims and prosecuting and defending actions, which is where you have somebody like me represents you in legal actions. And the key thing that you'll note about each one of those items is that you can only do them where, right here in a school board meeting. So your responsibilities by statute are all prescribed to things that you can do in a school board meeting. When you turn to the second page and look at your authority that the school statutes give you, that's to enter into

059an agreement for necessary good services, et cetera, employee and discharge, employees contract for services, procure insurance, receive donations, establish school programs to include the summer school programs, talked about extracurricular activities today and then also the least favorable of those is expelling students. Again, only one place you can do that and that's within a school board meeting. And that's critical because we'll talk about this in a bit, the only time you have any authority to do anything, except for the school board chair who has a few normal exceptions, the board members can only act here when there's a forum present and a school board meeting, you have no authority outside the meeting tax individually taking actions on behalf of the board. The next piece of authority has policy making. And of course, that's within the board

060meeting as well. One of the biggest and most important things you do is to hire a superintendent. And I say, that's one of the most important things you can do, because that is your one employee as a school board. That's the person you can hold responsible for doing or not doing what you want. And so you've probably heard me use the analogy before that you picked the destination on the roadmap and the superintendent figures out how to get there, makes the roads, the routes, the people that are gonna drive the buses to get there, et cetera. You just get to pick that final destination. And if the superintendent doesn't get there, you can call the superintendent held for that, but while you gotta give him that flexibility to get bus there the way he thinks

061the best to get there and that's part of governance and not management more the keys that you talk about, the statutes is really best in you the ability to govern a school district board by hiring a licensed superintendent to do your work. And you've probably heard that the average school board needs less than 72 hours in a year. Maybe you're more than that, I don't know how long the meetings go, maybe you're less. I know some school districts in greater Minnesota that meet on average less than two hours a month. So I think your budget, I don't know what your general budget is, roughly 112 million, something like that. - More than that. - A little bit more than that. So who would ever think you could run $112 million organization in 72 hours, whatever

062the case might be, nobody. And so when you're not expected to do that, you're expected to hire superintendent who's expected to hire the right people to accomplish that. So examples, and when it comes to employment matters, you have big picture decisions like the overall structure, organizational structure, the overall budget, the creation and elimination of position, that something else that's on your agenda for today to talk about the efficiency of school operations. You were looking at that the transportation discussion that's happened and general salary and benefits, which you do through approval, collect bargain units. Meanwhile, the superintendent and his staff select and assign personnel, they supervise and evaluate, they direct, enforce your rules that you create, they transfer and they discipline personnel. And that's really important because that tells you, that's not your role to do

063that. There's a superintendent I work with up in greater Minnesota school district, much smaller school district, but he and the school board chair always like to say, watch your own barber, 'cause they're big into fishing up there. Watch your own barber, if you're watching someone else's barber, there's a problem there. And so that school board it's a very efficient level in the school district where the board chair will always say, that's not my barber superintendent, that's yours to watch. And I think that's kind of a fun analogy to think about what you should or shouldn't be doing. I talked about before that you act as a body only when you're here as a forum and outside of that, you have no individual authority and that's really purposeful and important because when people approach you and

064ask you to do different things, it's important that they understand that you can't do those things for them. You might want to help them, you might wanna be there and kind of save the day, if you will, in some circumstances or at least give them guidance, but your role as a board member doesn't allow you to do that, your role is really what you can do here together as a board. One of the most common areas of problem that you'll see for school board members is getting involved in responding to complaints. So a community member comes up to you and says, "Hey, I've gotta a complaint, "did you hear what Mr. Smith, "middle school art teacher did?" I don't think it matters Mr. Smith, is a middle school art teacher, just made that up. "But

065did you hear what he did in class the other day? "I need you to look at this. "Or can you believe that the school board "is gonna be considering the non renewal "of this probational teacher? "I need you to look into that?" "Or can you believe how mean the bus driver was to... "Did you hear about how mean the bus driver "was the other day?" These are all things that are management level decisions that you can't really respond to, but it doesn't mean you ignore them. And in the materials I have laid out, there is a specific protocol for responding. You wanna make sure that you are documenting the complaint, so it doesn't get lost, make sure it's going to the superintendent. It's a superintendent's job then to filter it down to the right place.

066Now, sometimes you might, if it's definitely a building specific level concern, you might send it right to the building principal, but make sure you got to the superintendent because if that principal doesn't follow through, the superintendent needs to know that, so he can hold that principal accountable. So we wanna make sure we're keeping the superintendent at all times. Then you also wanna make sure you direct that complainant to the superintendent so that they know in the future who to go to because nobody wants to be, feel like they were ignored or they weren't heard or their concerns or complaints are gonna be addressed, but if you say I'm gonna direct that to the superintendent and here's the superintendent's address, I encourage you to follow up as well and let me know if you don't hear

067back, but I encourage you follow up as well. That is the really way to address that specific components. In that proper order of context or chain of command that sometimes called is so critically important because you can get yourself into legal liability, if you don't follow that chain of command and you can also create legal liability for the school district. And that, of course, are my big concerns. And that can happen in a number of ways. When you get a complaint team when school board members investigate on role, which you should never do, sometimes you don't know the rules of the game. You don't know the type of the warning that's necessary, whether it's attendance warning, security warning or something else that needs to be given, you know, like that door a union might start,

068some of you might, some of you might not, you know what those union rights are. You don't know what the district has done already, what the administration is doing, what the backstory is. And by going and just talking pretty innocently to a few people, you might impair the integrity of the investigation that the district is already conducting. And maybe you inadvertently provide information to somebody that allows them to shift their story that they otherwise would not have done, or makes them concerned that they're in trouble when they otherwise might not be in trouble. We need to make sure that you're not deemed to be biased, if a situation later comes before you. So as a school board member, if you go out and investigate on your own, and that matter comes up later before the

069board, maybe it's on a employee disciplined, discharge type of scenario, which is one of those things we all need to deal with, but sometimes we have to, the last thing you want is to be deemed biased or what if it's a student situation? Sometimes we have expulsions and that sounds simple like we would always all stay out of student problems and issues, but it can be a little more complicated than it sounds. And I'll give you an example of something that happened recently in the district where there were some things, some allegations made against one student, ended up not being true, but they were really widespread on social media and school board members started to weigh in on it on how this is just completely unacceptable behavior, conduct that should have never happened, and we

070all agree that the conduct shouldn't have happened, but really speaking to this particular issue, now we have a problem with privacy concerns, if we did need to discipline people, students may have a problem if and when it comes before the board. And one of the sad things that we're seeing as a tribe in our state, 'cause we represent districts across the state, are these repeated false allegations. Sometimes they're true, sometimes they're not. And we don't know until we fully investigate it, but this jumping on the notion of we're gonna, because someone made the allegation, we're gonna believe it's true is really harmful to our kids who we are entrusted to protect first and foremost. So when you get into investigating yourself or commenting, that can really put you in a bad spot as a board

071member, and then also from a legal liability standpoint. Also when you get into investigating on your own, you really undermine the authority of the superintendent. And then by extension the authority that folks who are working, the designees for the superintendent who are doing job order, building principles or what have you. So what not to do I have on page five, you don't wanna investigate yourself, you don't wanna promise a particular outcome, you don't wanna promise confidentiality, those are all promises you can't keep. You don't wanna pick sides, like the example I gave on social media because you don't know if you might end up on the wrong side, depending on how the investigation shakes out and the facts shake out. You don't wanna act outside the process of the decision maker or offer personally addressed

072concerns 'cause that again, that's something you can't do, and going below the superintendent is a problem because that might impair the way he's trying to do for you and I know most of you very much know. In terms of who you represent, and I've talked before about this, the school board members, there's often a misconception about who school board members represent. Sometimes there's this feeling like I got voted in because this organization endorsed me, maybe the union endorsed me, maybe this group of constituents, my neighborhood endorsed me, maybe a group that was really opposed to this boundary change endorsed me and I gotta represent them, that is simply untrue and inappropriate to do that. School boards are not political creatures. They're not political in nature, they never intend to be. Despite what people might say

073and try every reason change. Your job is to represent the entire community with an emphasis on all students. And if we keep in mind from the legal standpoint, the practical standpoint that point about all students that will get us out of a lot of trouble or keep us out of a lot of trouble because again, back to that example, when we start picking sides on students, we're not representing all students. We're forgetting the fact that by their very nature students make mistakes, we expect all kids to make mistakes. Otherwise, they wouldn't live with their parents till they're 18, right? If I wish my kids, I could say my kids never made a mistake, I wish I could say I never made a mistake, I made so many in my life, but we learn from those

074and choosing those sides is part of the problem. So we represent all students. And when we talk about what that might mean, I talked about how there could be some private organizations, maybe they are parent groups, maybe they're unions, maybe they're the most well intentioned groups out there, maybe they're 99% supportive of the school district, but again, you can't represent them because they're not always gonna represent the interests of all students or of the entire community. And I always ask myself a few questions. One, does, and I'm on the bottom of page five, does the organization exist to protect the interest of all students? Not many do, that's one of the great things about school board, you're one of the few, literally in the country organizations that exist. Your purpose is to protect the interest

075of all students in your district. Does the organization exist to protect the interest of the district and the community as a whole? What other organization exists for that other than school board? And who does that organization represent? So you are a really uniquely situated. I wanna talk for a minute too about that representing the all students, representing all students, because one of the things sometimes we hear today in our society is that, you've gotta be a vehicle for legal change, you've gotta put a stop to this. And I'm just gonna throw a controversial example that is very prevalent amongst our society today. The law is well established and clear in regard to the rights of transgender students. There is no question under the law that transgender students have a right to refer to what are

076their preferred name, preferred pronouns, to use a locker room that correlates to their gender identity, to use the restroom that correlates to their gender identity and have records that correlate to their gender identity. And sometimes people will say, well, I'm opposed to that, the school board you gotta stand up against, who responses to that, putting aside any personal feelings anyone has. Well, three responses. One, the law is clear and we have to follow the law and we're not gonna ignore the law. Number two, again, you're not a vehicle for legal change. What has happened to every school board that's tried to be a vehicle for legal change, besides the fact, you might not end up on the legal wrong side of an issue, but you end up paying out a lot of money and don't

077effect any change. And that's the truth of what happens when you try to use a school district in that manner. And then finally, again, back to my one meeting, overarching point, you represent all students. How can you say you represent all students if you oppose a group of students? We just don't, there's no getting around that as a group. So we have to make sure it's a welcoming environment for all students. In terms of considerations, I also wanna mention about a particular school before I go on. So in a lot of districts, and I think it's true in this district too, school board members are assigned to be in liaison to a particular school. And the concept is good in a lot of ways, but sometimes there's a misunderstanding that develops. Sometimes the staff at

078that school feel like, if you're assigned to that school, you represent them and you're to take their issues back to the board, and that's actually the opposite of what it's supposed to be. You're there as a representative of the board to the school, to hear, to listen to information, to make sure that you're in tune to what's happening there, but you don't represent that school or the issues at that school back to the board, that is not the role because again, you don't represent organizations, you don't represent particular schools, you represent all students at all schools. If you represented one school, then when we got to a boundary issue, for example, we're gonna be fighting with each other constantly. Instead do what's best for the district as a whole in the best way, do what's

079best for the community as a whole so. In terms of attending meetings, I have a couple of considerations on page six of the materials. Often school board members get put on tough spots. You get invited to meetings for a variety of reasons and I'd like to ask these questions. If you accept an organization's invitation to attend a meeting, are you creating a perception that you're there as your capacity as a board? Do you have any authority to be there in the capacity as a board member? Because individual board members don't have any authority unless you've been assigned by the board. Are you there to solve a management level problem? You feel like you're being invited to solve a management level problem or because this group wants you to support one group over another? If any

080of those are true, you should really think about declining that invitation. 'Cause none of those things would be part of the appropriate role of a board member. And another good question to ask is, are you being contacted because someone's unhappy with something the administration did? You're being invited to a meeting because someone's unhappy with the administrative decision. I don't like the staffing levels, I don't like the number of prior professionals at this building. I don't like the decision in terms of reductions at this particular school. If you're being invited for those reasons, you're being asked to do something that's outside the authority, power that you don't have. I did wanna provide you with some sample communication protocols and that's about page six and then on page seven materials. And I don't mean to suggest that

081these are lax that you have to say, but I need to give you some examples of ways that you might respond to that particular situation. So when you got a sample response to complaints, I already talked about that once, so I'm not going to read through that one. Sample response to personnel concerns, you might say, thank you for sharing your concerns about, maybe it's the non-renew of a probationary teacher, maybe it's accepting somebody's resignation, maybe even, whatever the case might be. Although I appreciate knowing your concerns, I wanna clarify the administration whose responsible for management, including all personnel matters that do not directly relate to the superintendent's employment. And because your complaints about the management level issue, I forwarded it to a superintendent and I encourage you to contact the superintendent as well. That's a

082kind of perfect response to complaints and personnel concerns. In terms of invitations to attend events, I think it's very wise for you to clarify. I think you plan on attending as a private citizen, not as a board member. And again, the board members don't have any authority back on behalf of the board or represent the board. And then with that, you're eager to attend and to learn more about it 'cause you don't wanna shut people out, you wanna hear what's happening, you wanna know what's happening in the community. And if you provide that kind of response and someone comes back and says, "Well, I'm not really sure, if you can't come as a board member." Well now, you know, you had an issue. But giving that kind of response, it's not offensive to anyone, it

083just tells you why you're there 'cause you're interested. If you get a request to meet with a current employee, former employee or a group of employees. This is one of the biggest. It's really easy to get pulled into this. They wanna talk to you because we're not really crazy about the terms and conditions of our employment. And you might wanna say, "Well, I'm just there, I'm gonna show support." Well, if they're in a union, you might be violating. However, the public employment labor relations act by meeting with them and talking about terms and conditions of employment, because we can only do that through their exclusive representative, through their union. And so as well intentioned as you might be, when we do that, we might be creating, again, liability for the district and liability for you.

084By the way, there are very few circumstances under which school board members can be held personally liable, but the one that is a biggie is when you knowingly act and exercise your authority. And that's why, one reason why I circled this, because I wanna make sure if you know that line, you know that you know you can stay within and comfortably without ever having to fear that personal liability. So the response to me, I have some sample language there. Again, you don't have authority to address issues such as dissatisfaction with management level decisions. And maybe they don't give you a reason why they wanna meet specifically, but if you give a response like the one I provided, that's gonna force them to give you a reason or to understand if the reason is something that

085would be beyond your authority, they're gonna not pursue that communication further. Sometimes we get respond or request to meet to discuss opposition to a particular student group. And so the example I have in here is, thank you for inviting me to meet with you to discuss your concerns about the school board support of LGBTQ students. I'm respectfully declining your invitation based on the law that prohibits discrimination based on protected class and guarantees equal rights for all students. I support the law as a board member, I wanna be sure that I represent all students in the district and would not wanna take any action that could be perceived to be taking a side on student in the district. Might be hard to write that, but if you're being invited by a particular group, that's the kind

086of thing you need to come back with because when we come back with that, those invitations stop and that's really what you want in the final analysis 'cause it's a no-win scenario if you do show up to that group meeting like that. Then the last two real quick is sometimes we have requests to meet to discuss political affiliations. So I had not too long ago where, and I've changed the facts here for my example, but where a certain political group wanted to meet with the school board member to see how they could help work with the school board member on issues are coming before the school board. Sounds innocent enough. You're not a political body. Why does that group wanna work with you as an individual school board member? It's their agenda, not yours, your

087agenda is all students, your agenda is something different. You have to be really mindful of them. And then lastly, sometimes we get these vitriolic argumentative inquiries or messages, or sometimes they're just repeated where someone keeps coming back with the same kind of cumulative information over and over. And I want you to know that it is absolutely okay not to respond. My world is litigation and in a world of litigation, when someone says something that's vitriolic or argumentative, the attorney is saying objection, and the judge says, sustained, which means you don't have to answer. When it's that kind of discourse that you're dealing with, you don't have the answer, it's not warranted. There's no benefit that's gained from answering an argumentative question. When did you stop beating your spouse, right? That's our classic familiar line. Well,

088I never did, you know. Why get into the argument? It's not a question worth responding. So don't feel because you're in a public office that you have to respond to things like that that are clearly over the top, clearly repetitive, clearly inappropriate to respond. With that, I know that there is an interest in communication protocols, if you have an any questions or any things or other items you'd like me to address, I'm happy to responsible, otherwise I'll stick around for a couple other items on the agenda. - Any questions for Mr. Waldspurger? - I just have comment. - Dr. Arcand. - This is really good information. The only thing, if I could have my wish come true, anybody that would file for school board when the campaign begins, if they could have this training because

089it makes it, it was very difficult I think for some of us last time, because they were expecting, like you said, they're political mule and they were gonna do this and this, and they don't understand how we represent all students and admitted it's very difficult that fall in that campaign. And so that when it comes time, because we we're still elected for people in the public to understand that. - And my hope would be that presentations like this public do help that understanding because it does put board members into a difficult spot, I'm sure. - And opinion piece to the White Bear press maybe or something, get it out there because expectations are not reasonable. - And that's why I just really love that notion of representing all students because if we had that in

090the back of our mind, that is really an issue, and that guides the answer to 90 plus percent of the questions, 90% of the questions. - Ms. Streiff Oji. - So a question comes to mind when we're invited to attend events, for instance, the many places events, but through our district that focuses on conversations about equity, race, LGBTQ, whatever, I don't... In attending that I don't feel like I'm putting that group in front of another group, I feel like it's part of supporting all students. Am I right in that thinking or what? - I would agree with that thinking. I think we wanna make sure we're creating an environment that's safe and welcoming for all students. And I say regardless of anybody's personal views, again, all students that's the key and save all of it

091for all students, so I think that's totally fine. When the invitation comes through the district, we know that that's a different kind of goals. When the invitation comes from outside the district, and sometimes it comes from outside the district in ways that kind of surprise us. I recall a few years back where there were a number of organizations that were trying to limit and things change with politics, of course, but trying to limit the number of students who were from, not from the United States in their enrollment in public schools. Now, first of all, unconstitutional. Secondly, putting everything else aside, all students. And my first response to every school board member that got an invitation to something that, all students. That does not benefit all students. But no, I think that's a good question. -

092Good question. - I have a couple of questions that I've been thinking about. So obviously all of this applies to social media as well and we need to be very cautious on social media because there are instances where people might tag us in something or say something to us about our role as board members. So what you're saying is ignore it completely. - Yeah, I think we wanna be careful not on social media, not to obviously promise our vote, not to say how we're going to vote, not to take sides on an issue, not to do anything that might alienate a student for sure to take sides of students. I think of some of the recent news stories and now they seem to be popping up in district after district, kids say terrible things. Sometimes

093they say terrible things at sporting events and right away, one district says that is unacceptable and they're gonna jump on and your district has, every single district has those issues they're dealing with. And to do that, to jump on social media and do that is just begging to say, come back in my face when I do that. And again, is that interest of all students? - And so just to clarify on that, that goes for our personal social media. - Yeah, and the eyes of the public. I can't control what you say or do on your personal time. - Right. - If some of you heard my phrase on your own time, on your own time, meaning completely no school district resources whatsoever on your own time working for the district in any way, you

094can say what you want. And the first amendment allows us to say really idiotic things, really mean spirit of awful things, but members of the public right or wrong, always see you where that school board hat, and there's no way to take it off. And that's true for teachers too. You can't be a teacher and say, I'm here for an open and warm and welcoming environment for all students and then go out the post on social media something that's kind of trivial. I know you would never do that, nobody can ever do that. But the reality is that we can't change when we're in this kind of public position. You can't put one view out there and say, "No, I actually have a different view." I think I very strongly agree with you, I guess,

095(indistinct) - Yes, so it goes along with what Ms. Streiff Oji was saying is that if we attend these community events like many faces the logic for me sounds like we can also say on our public pages, I support LGBTQ students or I support our students of color. - Yes, because you're not taking a side where you're saying, I don't support this other group. Now, if you say, I'm trying to think of an example that wouldn't be so over the top, I don't support the rights of transgender students. Obviously it's against one group. So when you say something that's against one group or I support, let's say there's a group out there that has voices opposition to some student activity, we don't wanna align with that because again, we don't have all the details of

096that student activity. Maybe we do, but we're not gonna attack some student, even if they make stupid decisions because we represent all students. - That's really helpful. The other question that I have is I think this is so helpful for me as a board member to just, and we have all done training through MSBA about how to be good board members, but I think there's this, like, there's a disconnect between what we do and then what the greater public knows about what we do. And so would you recommend then something like, for example, when I was at MSBA conference recently, another board member from another district said that before every board meeting, she says, "We are here tonight, "our meeting as a board in public "to handle the governance of this district." Just so that

097it becomes part of the content of the way that we operate as a board to say, this is who we are, and this is what we do. - Yeah, I don't think that's a bad idea. And I think also when issues come up, when sometimes we have issues, for example, during public comment they come up and we don't typically respond in that same meeting, but you can respond in future meetings or you can have a general statement at the start of public comment. These are the types of things that the school board addresses. These are the types of favors that administration addresses. And if people are going to be making public comment on management level decisions, that's beyond the board's purview. And we're not gonna stop you, but I want you to know it's not

098a constructive use of your time because those kinds of issues have to be directed to the superintendent, not to this board. So, I think it's a wise idea to have some statement like that and you could certainly do it before a public comment or you could do it at the next meeting after you've had some type of comment like that, but I kinda like the idea of working it in somehow beforehand. - Right, thank you so much for your time. - My pleasure. - It was very helpful. - So I asked Mick to stick around into the next topic, are we ready to do that? - Yeah, so let's go to our discussion item before resolution supporting community or commitment to equity and then inclusion by Dr. Kazmierczak. - Right, thank you as Chair Ellison,

099members of the board. So I asked Mick if he could stick around because there might be some questions that actually Mike dovetailed with previous presentation as well, I think provides a good opening for some of the questions regarding the resolution before you, maybe you've already gotten answered through next presentation. So we have a resolution supporting commitment to equity and inclusion for the intent of this resolution is to publicly commit and to continue our efforts around diversity, inclusion and racial equity and to adopt government speech improvements of these objectives. We've talked about government speech before. There's a couple specific in the resolution, there's a couple of specific items, number 14 and number 15 that relate to government speech. So this resolution is consistent with the district's policies and our strategic plan and adds further clarity around

100communication. And that specifically relates to the government speech portion. Additionally, the resolution directs the superintendent to develop and implement systemic protocol for responding to racial and/or biased harm. And as we have seen in, as we've mentioned here tonight, in recent weeks there have been issues in other school districts at sporting events, social media, all those things have come up here earlier. So it's timely for us to consider taking action on this. And I know you've got this today, so if you're not ready to take action on it today, I would fully understand that, but my hope that my recommendation that we would potentially do that this evening. So anyway, I guess that's the introduction and there's comments or questions at this point and again, as I said, I asked Mick to stick around in case

101there are legal questions around any he might revisit as well. - Ms. Thompson. - I don't know who exactly this is a question for, but reading through all this is like a lot of words, but what is being done to like actually enforce this? 'Cause I know this is a lot, but like there's so much that could happen. It's like a really broad topic with racism, but how do we get this out to everybody? 'Cause just reading all this, it's just words. - I see, yeah, that's a good question. I think we have, I'm not certain there's others who can chime in. We have policies in place, we have procedures in place, we have building administrators with students, and when issues arise, they're best dealt with at the school level, meaning we believe we have

102a robust set of policies in place to get principles and tools they need to be able to deal with situations as they arise. But you're right, there are issues and we're committed to continuing to improve it as a system and I think we've come a long way, I think we have a long way to go. And this school board and administration, we've had conversations about this being an important step along the way to actually commit to the work that we have been doing and commit to further work as we go forward. I don't think anybody else has a... Ellison can probably talk with Dr. Lisa. We can probably talk about some of the student groups we've worked with and some of the efforts that we're taking. And I specifically mentioned the development and implementation of

103a protocol for responding to racial or biased harm that's something right now and actually we're using it, we're still refining it, but we're using it right now that's relatively new. So I think there are things happening. - So two big things, I think when students ask that question and it's a super valid question is how do we change the culture at school? And that is how do we help students talk about what school feels like for them and partnering together at school. And so principals are working with leadership groups to talk and really look at that with students. So the high school has some things going on and talking about like, how do we create a welcoming environment for students and what's going on, 'cause that's a part as adults, we don't know everything that's

104going on. So our administrators take each situation seriously, they follow through on it, but what we keep hearing is, is nothing's being done partly because students don't get to know every single step of the discipline situation, but really what they're saying is things don't change. And so really looking at how do we amplify student voice to say really, okay, the student leadership group, both North and South are working with students to say, how can can we create a campaign around positive school culture? Other area districts are doing things with middle school. And so we were just talking about what can we do at our middle schools. And so really what I'm finding for the first time in my career, which it's been a long one already is the districts are partnering together in a way

105that they haven't always before. And so when we have an incident of some sort of harm based in race or bias, every single administrator has to call me when it happens that I know that it's happening and I can coach them through the process and making sure that they're reaching out to families so that they know that we know something's happened at school prior to maybe even getting that far into the investigation so that people understand that we're taking it seriously and because social media is so difficult, they know better than we do. But if they have a group Snapchat, which I'm sure that's not even how you say it, (group laughing) but I'm trying and I still have a Facebook people, so the kids laugh at me, so then it gets a life of

106its own. And so how do we have families know like kids are talking about it in this group chat, we need to know, we know about it and we're gonna get to the bottom of it, but we're investigating. And those are things we didn't always do right away 'cause as administrators, we wanted to make sure we had enough information to reach out to families and say, we've investigated, this is what's happened, this is what hasn't happened and we actually waited too long. And so those are some things that we're still working through. And then thinking about what types of training do we need for teachers and principals to make sure that they really are connecting with students, 'cause it really starts with the relationships that we have with students and making sure that kids feel

107seen in school, and this is like Mr. Waldspurger was talking about like what do we talk about in term of, did I say his last name wrong, Lisa? Like, you're like the owner of the burger place now Mr. Waldspurger. (group laughing) (indistinct) Waldspurger, there we go. We're gonna go down in history, yeah. But so anyways, yeah, I say all that to say we're taking it really seriously and working with students and it's a ton of things going on, but really it will be student voice to tell us, this is really changing. And so then how do we circle back with students and have those leadership groups with their principals. - Yeah, I totally, 'cause there's just one, a kid can say something blatantly racist to someone or it could be someone in a big student

108section, like at a girls basketball game which happened recently. And I know there can't be one single punishment for everything, but I do feel like, I wish this was like talked about more like, was it Minnetonka or something with the girls basketball team with the slurs, maybe something like, hey, as a White Bear Lake School District, we do not condone this type of behavior and it could spread to the whole school or. I think 'cause there's no one answer, which is why I was asking you guys 'cause I don't even know the answer. But I know it's a lot and I think you guys are doing a great job. I know there's so much that's happening, but there's always more to be done. - Well, really the key is working with the principals and students

109for things like that. 'Cause we absolutely can say those things and where do we say them so that students really receive that and it's productive so that it changes the environment. And so, when we met the students just to get feedback around how school is feeling, they did give me feedback around, even just thinking through consequences, like kids really don't want kids to be suspended or kicked out of school. They talked about like really making sure, like can we talk about like taking away a school dance so that, like delaying your book, wanting kids to understand like I want you to understand and stop what you're doing so that we can be in school and in community together. And so that's why I really wanna continue to support that student leadership and partnership with the

110building leaders, but really, and that is something that we haven't always, we've done well in terms of thinking about student leadership, but not always through transforming school culture in the way that we need to right now. So I'm excited about what we can do. - And he was saying earlier, that it's more of an administration thing and not a school board thing. - Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. - Implementation (indistinct). - Except I do think this is important- - Wait, Dr. Lisa, sorry, Dr. Arcand had his hand first and then I'll jump to you. - I just wanted to say, I love the question. And I think that this is really important from the last discussion. Everything that was talked about was management and we don't get involved in that. So the question was how did

111we support management? And so by passing this resolution we're saying, we're supporting management in these areas. And so for us as a school board for governance by passing this, we're saying we're support management and then they, from there, we'll figure out ways to move forward, so that's why it works that way from our standpoint moving forward, does that make sense? - Yeah, but like hypothetically, of course. What if they made the wrong decision? - Well, then I'm gonna really say if we don't like the decision they made, then I have the one employee that I can work with the group would be the superintendent and that's our discussion there. If the associate superintendent makes a decision I don't like, I go to the superintendent. If a principal makes a decision I don't like, I go

112to the superintendent because that's my role. This is the only person that I go to as the board and then he will handle it, okay. And so that's why that the government pieces, we're supporting, we're expecting the superintendent to implement the management of it. And so that's how our role works. And the important thing with your role is you continually ask these questions to push us forward without that we don't move forward, so I appreciate that. Thank you. - Dr. Newmaster. - I was gonna say almost the same thing exactly. But I do think, yes, these are a lot of words, but they're important words. Like they should put them on a stone tablet and light them up at night that show that we're firmly behind these statements that's all we can do, that's the

113governance, the over view, this is what we want. It's not my problem to figure out how it's gonna happen, but this has been chewed on by a lot of groups. And I'm really happy to see that everything develops, but this is a good, strong statement to say, this is what we want for our community and this is what we're behind as a board and as a district, this should be, and you are the mover and shaker as a student to say, but that's not what's happening in the hall. And then there are all these other people that are gonna help work on that to build this community. - This is probably more for Mick, just as an explanation for anybody, so as we adopt or don't adopt the resolution, why is it important for us

114to include the government speech portions? - So what government speech allows you to do is we are adopting a specific message as our message without opening the door to countervailing messages. Because generally speaking within a government setting, a public employer setting, if you create a certain type of a forum, anything other than a closed forum, you openly create a limited open forum or an open forum, then you open the door to people who have different views, kind of fighting your message. But the courts have said under the government speech doctrine, that you can adopt your own message and prohibit as your positive welcoming message and prohibit contrary messages in that leading cases out of the Los Angeles School District, where the district declared the month of June to be gay, lesbian awareness month. And as

115part of that, the school district adopted certain messages, promoting equity and a welcoming environment. And the plaintiff in that case, Mr. Downs was a high school teacher who didn't like that message, and so he posted on bulletin boards contrary in the school, contrary messages, and the principal said, take it down because it's offensive, which probably wouldn't have been enough of a rationale legally, but he said, take it down because it's contrary to the government speech, the message adopted by the school board and the administration pursuant to the school board resolution. And that carried the day in the courts. He later sued and said, "You come disciplined for me "for my own free speech." And the court said, "You don't have that free speech "in front of students "and you don't have a right "to a

116contrary message that (indistinct) "that contradicts the government speech "adopted by the school board in United States." So here you are saying, this is our message, this is what we want to advance. And by doing that, you're not opening the door to employees or other individuals who might have a different view to come in and try to spread the contrary message that would undermine your efforts then. - So what if, could boards adopt resolutions that were contrary to laws within their states? - That's a very good question. The answer is no. There are some very well known exceptions to the government speech doctrine. One of them is speech that would either advance or inhibit religion because we know one of the first amendment establishment clause that you can't adopt speech of that nature. Also, we know

117in the State of Minnesota, we have very strong walls on political speech and on promoting referendum, trying to advance a referendum, trying to advance a ballot measure, trying to advance a candidate type of thing that we could not adopt as government speech, some speech that violate those types of laws. So those are two really well established known kind of exceptions that we would have to follow, but where the law is prohibited, and here in particular where your speech is entirely consistent with the necessarily human rights act and cases interpreting that act, I think you're really on the strong going of it. - Thank you. - Ms. Streiff Oji. - I just wanted to respond to just some visits that I had in the last couple of weeks depending on ways that I've seen administrators reaching

118out to kids and one is Central Middle School within affinity of programming two classes with kids getting their feedback. And I think the bar program building the relationships with kids so that you trust us enough to be able to say what you just said at this table. So it's really important that if our kids don't trust us to say, I don't see it happening, I don't see things changing, and Dr. Kazmierczak response to that, like she hears you and I think that's what I see unique about this district and why I want to stay engaged with this district beyond retiring from a position, but I just want to share those things with you. And then like the government speech thing, I feel like last year we heard a lot of teachers not sure what they

119could and couldn't post and this does support them posting something that shows that as a former administrator to have that backing, it's really helpful. - Sorry, I didn't want seem like I was saying you guys aren't doing anything. (group laughing) - Oh, we appreciate your feedback. (indistinct) - And there's only just room for more. - Yeah, always and everywhere. - Yeah, we know all about this, yeah. - The question was a great question 'cause the conversion that ensued was so powerful. - I have a question just to clarify the difference between a resolution and a policy? - Yep, so a resolution is a commitment that we do something, and a policy is kind of best thought of as a rule or a regulation. And so this would be your commitment and you would already have

120rules and regulations governing the vast majority of all pieces in this. So for example, if we have, we're talking about racial equity, we already have policies that are the rules that prohibit discrimination, that prohibit harassment, that talk about how we're gonna react and respond and investigate and remediate. So, you already have the underpinnings of this if you will, this is your commitment to saying, how do we take it one step further? And I really did like the point that was just made is this helps provide clarity to your administration to say that these are the messages that we endorse and we claim as hours as government speech, so that they don't have to worry are they stepping online. Because when we talk about the role of the school board and a lot of those things

121that I just went through, only the school board has the power to do this. Your superintendent doesn't have the power to declare this without you, you can give him some power under it, but you are the only body that has the power to declare this and then administration can implement in carrying help. So again, this is the commitment we already have the under cutting, if you will, building up, building through the policies you have. - Ms. Thompson. - I have a, maybe something in it, if we were to pass it tonight that I feel might need to be changed and not having a lot of time to go through all the language. I mean, it all seems to be pretty good. But in number four, I'm not extremely comfortable with having individuals with disabilities in

122the same category as individuals with their sexual or like we broke everything else down, I feel like those need to be separated. They're just something about having individuals because of a disability or their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression to me is, it doesn't feel comfortable to me. It's like adding those two together and I feel like it maybe should be separated, like hate speech directed at individuals with disabilities. And I know there's a word confirmed that people with disabilities they don't like to be called, and I don't know, maybe you can help me Lisa, but is it like an individual it's super similar the way that it's said, like an individual with a disability or individuals, there's like another I can't think of it, 'cause I don't know how. Yeah, it's just to not,

123that the disability isn't them itself, it's just something that they, it's part of them. Other than that, I mean, everything looks great in there. There might be an extra common in one area, but I'm not a language or arts teacher, so I'm not gonna pretend I know that's for sure, but that number four was the only thing that kind of stuck out to me as I would really like it separated. But other than that it's (indistinct). - I just have a quick question then. Is there a lifespan for this, like when you have a policy it's there until you change it, is this there until we repropose something or does it go away eventually? I guess, I don't know, how does that work? - Excellent question, it's there until you rescinded or you supersede it.

124- Okay, thank you. - I was gonna make, I think one important thing for individuals with differences is that they're individuals first. And so people first language is here, which I appreciate they're individuals first. And then they may have a disability or they may have a difference in their sexual orientation. But first, people first language is what I always think is the most important context for any policy or any kind of talk around any difference. So I appreciate that that's first. - Sorry, I'm going back to the race question, but I was reading the official government speech and it says, "We believe black lives matter." And you were saying how it, there can't be something that contradicts that, but I feel like there's a lot of sayings that do contradict that as like an opposition

125to that, would that fall under that person's freedom of speech? - So, and I said contradicted, so meeting like our staff, for example, what we hang on the wall, so if a teacher were to hang on the walls something that's specifically approved here, like "we believe black lives matter" on the wall and somebody else, another teacher tries to hang on the wall or another employee, something that would contradict that, we would have the right to remove that. Students do have their own first amendment rights and actually have greater first amendment rights in the school setting than employees do. It's that kind of a long explanation of why that is, but particularly when you're out in the structured environment in the classroom. So you're walking in the halls, you're posting on social media. Students have much

126broader first amendment rights and their rights get many, many times greater when they step outside of the school grounds and there's no nexus to school. So we can't stop students from the multitude of terrible, wrong kind things or wrong things they might say outside of the schoolhouse doors. But within school we can control what our staff put as messages and we can limit to some degree what students say, particularly within the structured classroom environment. - Okay, so contradict has to be like, we don't, it can't be a supporting a different organization? - So, really good question, so let me give you an example. So if let's say a teacher has hanging up on the wall, a sign that says "black lives matter" and a student wears to school a shirt that says, "all lives matter,"

127the district couldn't discipline the student for that because that student has a first amendment right, unless you had a regulation that says students may not wear clothing with any messages 'cause we have to be viewpoint neutral. Same thing as a student came to school wearing some kind of political speech, we can't say, you can't wear a pro Republican or a pro-democratic or Democrat shirt, whatever it might be, we have to, unless we prove all messages, we have to allow that. But now if a student wore some thing that had a message that violated our harassment policy went a step further, or if they used the message in a way that was targeted to somebody or harassed somebody, then we'd have the legal authority to address them. - Okay, totally makes sense. - Really good question.

128- Can a teacher take that on their wall though? - Nope. - Okay. - And that's the key in this, is that we can, like Mr. Downs in the Los Angeles School District, where he wanted to hang his contrary reviews up there, they were able to say no. And here a teacher might not like it, but that is the official school message so. - So just to kinda get the temperature of the board here, if we were to make the recommendation that Ms. Thompson had, where we split number four into two statements, we condemn hate speech directed to individuals because of a disability, period. Next line, we condemn hate speech directed to individuals because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. - Two separate. - If we do that are we- - Are we

129interested in proving this this evening? Okay, so then what I would recommend is that we add an operational item. We have like eight minutes left. Unless we wanna extend the board meeting, I would recommend that we add that as item six, operational item, to approve the resolution, supporting commitment to equity and inclusion. - So madam chair, what you need to do is make a motion to amend agenda to approve that operational item and then get a second vote on the motion to amend and then you would vote on the motion to separately on the motion to approve the resolution. - Okay, so I move to amend the agenda to add operational item C6 to approve the resolution supporting commitment to equity and inclusion. - So moved. - Second - Second, any discussion? Could we do

130a voice vote? - You can do just a regular voice vote and you need two thirds, so if there's someone who's against it, then you can go back and count it. - Okay, so I would ask for all those in favor, please say aye. - [Group] Aye. - Oppose, same sign. Okay, thank you for the guidance, Robert, I'm still learning Robert's rules. - So then we move- - All right, so. So that was number six on our operational items. So we will move into our operational items. We have for our board policy of seven minutes to go. I think we can probably get through our operational items in seven minutes right clerk? - I think we can. - Okay, so let's move first to operational items C1, action on the FY23 budget adjustments. - Sure,

131and I'm sure earlier tonight we presented on the proposed budget adjustments for the projected '22-'23 budget. And it is that administration's recommendation that the board approve those recommendations as presented. - You've heard the recommended action. Can I get a motion to approve motion by Ms. Beloyed. A second? - Second. - Second by Ms. Streiff Oji, any discussion? This will require a roll call vote. I would ask the clerk to please call the roll. - Daniels. - Yes. - Ellison. - Aye. - Newmaster. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson I. Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed. - Aye. - The motion passes, thank you. Operational MC2, action on the resolution proposing placement of continuing contract teachers on unrequested leave of absence, Mr. Wald is it- - I can jump in and... I mean, Mick

132is here to answer specific questions about the process, so, this is a required step in placing continuing contract teacher on requested leave. This had an effect no different from no one who knows a probationary staff (indistinct) just that tenured staff with additional rights are afforded down. So notice that the layoffs will be sent via certified mail this week, all impacted employees have been spoken. I dunno if there's anything else to add, but that's the... You haven't seen this before because we haven't done this before but you can time on the board. Kathleen has partly experienced it from the other as an administrator. March, probably got one today, but at least you got some guidance to it, you know? Some of us experienced it and this is a normal course of action during that. I'm not

133even necessarily during budget reductions, it could because of a reduction in a program 'cause of Wald introducing something like that. - You've heard the recommended action. Can I get a motion to approve? - So moved. - A move my Ms. Beloyed and the second? - Second. - Second by Dr. Newmaster, any discussion? Oh Ms. Daniels just briefly. - It's a difficult decision and I just appreciate all the time and thought that went into making these very difficult decisions about very dedicated one. - Thank you. - For the discussion? All right, this will require a roll call vote. I would ask the clerk to please call. - Daniels. - Aye. - Ellison. - Aye. - Newmaster. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson I. Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed. - Aye. - And the

134motion passes, thank you. We'll now move into operational item C3, action on resolution of approving the employment of a board member. - All right, and so the statute section 123B.195 authorizes school districts to employ school board member. There's a reasonable expectation at the beginning of the fiscal year or at the time a contract is entered into or extended that the amount to be earned by the school board member will not exceed $8,000 in that fiscal year saying we have three resolutions that we acted upon separately. So the first one, first recommended, first resolution would be to approve the employment of board member, Jessica Ellison to work in the following positions, and will be as a substitute teacher. - You've heard the recommended action. Is there a motion to approve? - So moved. - Motion by

135Dr. Arcand and a second? - Second. - Second by Dr. Newmaster. This will require a roll call vote for which I will abstain. - Daniels. - Aye. - Newmaster. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson I. Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed. - Aye. - Motion passes. - And then the next recommended action would be to approve the employment of board member Deborah Beloyed to working in the following positions, playground, lunchroom, supervisor. - And this will also require a roll call vote where I will abstain. - So moved. - Yes, could I get action? Dr. Newmaster, thank you. And a second? - Second. - Second by Ms. Daniels, and this will require a role call vote. - Daniels. - Aye. - Ellison. - Aye. - Newmaster. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. -

136Thompson I. Arcand. - Aye. - And the motion passes. - Streiff- - Okay, NC5. - Recommended action to approve the employment of board member captain Daniels towards the following position, substitute teacher. - Can I get a motion to approve the recommended action? - So moved. - Ms. Beloyed and the second. - Second. - Second by Ms. Streiff Oji. And this will require a roll call vote at which Ms. Daniels will abstain. - Ellison. - Aye. - Newmaster. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson I. Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed. - Aye. - And motion passes. And finally, operational item C6, the approval of the resolution supporting commitment to equity and inclusion we had quite a bit of discussion. So could I get a motion to approve? - So moved. - Second. (indistinct) (all

137laughing) - Ms. Beloyed and Mr. Thompson has a second. Any further discussion? All right, this will require a roll call vote. - Daniels. - Aye. - Ellison. - Aye. - Newmaster. - Aye. - Streiff Oji. - Aye. - Thompson I. Arcand. - Aye. - Beloyed. - Aye. - And the motion passes. And with that I will adjourn the meeting. Oh, wait, wait, wait. This is like test on Chair Ellison's understanding of Robert's rules. Okay, could I get a motion to adjourn? - Ellison... - I move for an adjournment. - And could I get a second? - Second. - Motion by Dr. Arcand and second by Streiff Oji and we are adjourned. (group cheering) (group laughing) - Hi. (indistinct chatter)