September 24, 2018 - Work-Study School Board Meeting

001Clerk, will you do the roll call? [Beloyed] Here. - Chapman. Here. Ellison. Here. Fahey. Here. Mullin. Here. - [Ellen] Newmaster. - [Marge] Here. - [Ellen] Wilson. - [Scott] Here. - [Don] I'd like to move to our first operational item, B1, which is the certification of the 2018 pay 2019 proposed property tax levy. Mr. Wald? - [Tim] Good evening chairman, members of the board. Dr. Kazmierczak. Annually the board is required to certify to the auditors of each county. We serve three counties, Anoka, Ramsey, and Washington counties. We're required to certify our preliminary property tax levy for the upcoming fiscal year. School districts and counties operate on different fiscal years. Counties operate on a January 1 to December 31 fiscal year and school districts, of course, operate July 1 through June 30th and so that we're in

002a little bit different budget years as the property tax is certified. So we work with Minnesota Department of Education to estimate what our levy will be during the county's fiscal year. The summary document we shared with you today indicates the property tax payable beginning January 1st, 2119 through the end of the calendar year. This document is pared down from a lengthy Minnesota Department of Education document that's about 40 pages long and considers over 4,000 calculations. So, we're really thankful that the Minnesota Department of Education helps us calculate this levy and that our director of finance, Mr. Wieczorek, is very skilled about simmering it down into a one page summary. So, you've seen the preliminary tax levies. The maximum levy is 11.97%, which is a bit higher and there's several reasons why that levy is a

003bit higher this year and our Director of Finance, Mr. Tom Wieczorek is with us tonight. He'll walk through with some of those adjustments where that impacted our current or our preliminary levy amount. Mr. Wieczorek? - [Tom] Thank you. Good evening board. Thank you for your time tonight. In the computation document Mr. Wald referenced, the Minnesota Department of Education Finance Department uses very specific data for our district and the community to calculate these numbers leading us to the school district portion of your homeowner's property tax statement that you'll be getting the preliminary one this fall. These data elements include student enrollment projections, adjusted net tax capacity that the county actually computes, our referendum operating levy, and a myriad of other funding calculations. As Tim said, over 4,000 calculations. This MD report is called the Levy Limitation

004and Certification Report. In your materials tonight is a summary of that document. In addition to that, I have prepared an analysis of the report and I apologize for how small the letters are but it gives you a snapshot of all the levy documents that go into our numbers. (mumbles) I'm just gonna highlight three areas because three areas essentially make up a majority of our levy change. General fund referendum was due to an increase in our projected enrollment growth and the inflationary factor of 2.24% and then also adjusting for last year's increase in enrollment. So, those three things factor into our levy referendum increasing. Another area is the general fund categoricals. Things like operating capital, safe schools, achievement integration revenue, career and technical revenue and these are showing an overall decrease and they're showing a decrease

005because of the shift of long term facilities going from the general fund levy category to debt service. And then, the third area is debt service and OPEB debt service. They account for 87% of our total levy increase and that's basically because of a change in the debt repayment schedule for OPEB which is, now we'll have two years left. We'll have one year after this 19 levy and an increase of like over three million dollars. So it went from one dollar amount to three million dollars higher and then next year it will be at an amount just a little bit lower and then the OPEB bonds will be paid off. - [Tim] And that was a scheduled increase in when the time the bonds were sold in 2008, I believe it was. - [Tom] Changes that

006we have experienced to our levy documents are not unusual between now and the final because there's a lot of actual numbers going into the MDE. So, just for an example in the last week, the levy documents have come out six different times in the last week. We don't always see an increase but any time data changes that may affect us, they rerun our levy documents. So, we've had 'em updated now about five, six times in the last week. So the final certification will be in December. The reason that we have you certify maximum is because if we didn't, then every time they changed the levy documents we'd have to come back to you to have you re-certify the levy. So this just is a mechanism the state has for, you know, only time now we

007have to re-certify will be in December. So with that, I'll turn it back over to Tim. - [Tim] So the next step for us will be to bring back the levy certification at the Truth and Taxation hearing in December. So that's the next time you'll see us on this topic. So tonight, administration is recommending the school board certify the maximum levy provided by state law. By certifying the maximum levy allowed, it will account for changes prior to the final levy certification in December. - [Don] Okay, is there any questions before we get a motion on the floor to do so? Mr. Wald, so are these numbers, the maximum is what we're asking for now. Are those the final numbers or that will be brought out in December? - [Tim] Yeah, these are not, these may

008be the final numbers but they could adjust between now and December. - [Don] Okay. And then just for clarification if you don't mind, OPEB bonds, can you just kind of give us a quick run down of what they actually are so just making sure that everybody knows what they are. - [Tim] Sure. OPEB stands for Other Post-Employment Benefits and in 2008 the district was allowed to sell bonds to the value of our liability for post-employment benefits and most of those benefits that we're paying have been sunsetted now but we still have a liability that are covered through these OPEB bonds and so we'll have those paid off in one more year. - [Don] Okay. So with that, we have a recommended action to move the approval of the maximum for the 2018 payable 2019 proposed

009property tax levy. Is there a motion to do so? - [Scott] So moved. - [Don] A motion by Mr. Wilson. Is there a second? - [Marge] Second. - [Don] Second by Ms. Newmaster. Under discussion, is there any questions, comments? Mr. Chapman. - [Kim] As far as the bonds getting paid off within the next year or two, will there be a need to reissue any bonding to replace those bonds are we talking that they're totally, I mean, there would be no need to do that? - [Tim] In terms of the post-retirement liability they'll be no-- - [Kim] No further bond. - [Tim] We'll be funded now for the duration of our post-employment benefits. - [Kim] Okay. - [Tom] May I insert in Tim? So the way that works is 2008, the original bond issue was, I

010don't remember the exact number I wasn't here. Let's say-- - [Tim] 39 million. - [Tom] 35 million whatever it was, whatever the bond issue was. So the bonds were sold and that money has been held in a trust. Up until recently that was with Wells Fargo and we just moved it in the last year. So the balance in that account is used to pay for our post-employment benefit liabilities but in the levy schedule that you're seeing tonight, this is the debt schedule that was created back in 2008 when these bonds were issued. So what you're approving tonight isn't payment on post-employment benefits. It's payment on the bonds that were issued 10 years ago to cover post-employment benefits on an ongoing basis. In fact, I think it covers us for several decades in the future based

011on our actuarial study. So that's the largest portion of the levy increase this year. It was a scheduled debt payment based on decisions that were made in 08. This is what's due. The other portion, the largest portion of the increase, the second largest portion, again, as was mentioned is the referendum and when enrollment goes up and your per pupil amount is generated. You have more students, more is generated. That revenue gets spread out as well and that's the operating levy that was mentioned. So, those are the two primary categories. Otherwise nothing really jumps out for me when I look at the document other than there were some, there might have been a large decrease in one area but it was that way because it was offsetting a large increase and then other things may have

012shifted. Community services, that went up a fair amount but that had to do with the fact that we had an increased number of students with special needs taking part in our after school programs and we're able to levy for the additional costs associated with providing services for students with special needs in our after school programs. Again, by and large the biggest portion of it is that debt schedule. - [Don] Mr. Chapman, did you have a follow up? - [Kim] Yeah, a couple of 'em if I may. - [Don] Go ahead. - [Kim] In terms of, so if I'm hearing you right then basically once this bond issue is over or paid off, then OPEB is fully funded or considered actuarially to be fully funded. Correct? - [Tim] Yes. - [Kim] Okay. Then the other question

013I've got is what kind of tail, do we have any idea what the tail is when those OPEB claims are gonna be run off, how far into the future? I mean, I don't need an answer to that tonight. (chattering drowns out speakers) - [Tim] McKenna might be on the board at that point. - [Tom] McKenna might be retiring by that point. (laughing) Okay, so I'll take a crack at it. So, public employees in Minnesota are able to stay on the insurance policy of the school district, in this case from which they retired. So, we'll always have a OPEB liability just because there's, without getting too far into the weeds, but I'm gonna have to I guess, with implicit rate, subsidy versus just the actual cost. When retirees are part of a plan, that tends to

014drive costs up for the entire plan because retirees are typically higher users of the plan and so districts will, even if the OPEB liability, even if the OPEB trust was no longer in existence, we would still have a liability going forward for retirees because retirees actuarially contribute some amount to the overall cost of the insurance plan. So, we'll always have some level of OPEB liability specific to the employees that are here. I believe that the latest actuarial study had it pushing out 30 or 40 years. That's how far the data goes. While there are assumptions that they're covered for that length of time. - [Kim] Okay. - [Tom] That's when like the largest portion of the liability is then (mumbles) I guess you'd call it. - [Kim] 'Cause a lot of these things as you

015mentioned, Mr. Wald, were sunsets. I was just curious as relative to-- - [Tom] Yup, in the contracts those benefits have been sunsetted. - [Don] Any other questions under discussion? Okay we have a motion and a second. This having financial implications, we'll need a role call vote. Madam Clerk. - [Ellen] Beloyed. - [Deb] I. - [Ellen] Chapman? - [Kim] I. - [Ellen] Fahey, I. Mullin. - [Don] I. - [Ellen] Newmaster? - [Marge] I. - [Ellen] Wilson? - [Scott] I. - [Don] Okay, the motion passes. With that, that's the last of the business we have for the special call meeting so I will ask for, to move to adjourn the special call meeting. - [Scott] Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn. - [Don] And I'll second that and we are adjourned. (gavel bangs) Thank you. Now we

016will open up the work student session for independent school district 624. Will the clerk please call the role? - [Ellen] Beloyed. - [Deb] Here. - [Ellen] Chapman. - [Kim] Here. - [Ellen] Allison absent. Fahey, here. Mullin? - [Don] Here. - [Ellen] Newmaster. - [Marge] Here. - [Ellen] Wilson. - [Scott] Here. - [Don] Okay. With that, we'll move to our first discussion item, B1, which is the cultural liaison's introductions. Ms. Paul? - [Sara] All right, Chair Mullen, Dr. Kazmierczak, members of the board. We are excited to be here tonight to talk with you a little bit about the work that our cultural liaisons do in the district. There are five of our cultural liaisons here tonight that are gonna briefly introduce themselves to you and just share a little bit about the work that they do.

017Just want to set a little bit of context. Our education system needs to constantly be looking at how we need to change as a system to meet the needs of our students. We have a bold mission statement that talks about each student having the opportunities to access ways in which they can develop their unique talents and abilities and these people have a tremendous role in making that happen. The liaison between students, staff members, and families to make sure that all of the opportunities that we have are not only can be accessed but that we continually improve on what we do and so that we are listening to those that we are wanting to serve and make sure that their needs are met. So, we're gonna introduce them here. I want to make sure that everybody

018can be heard and they have a chance to speak into the microphone and so the first two that I want to introduce to you, we've got liaisons working from early childhood all the way through graduation with our students and families. The first two liaisons are Amy Ottaviani and Mee Yang. They both work in our early childhood programming so I'm just gonna have them share a little about themselves first. - [Amy] So, my name is Amy Ottaviani, like she said, and I am a cultural liaison basically working between babies up through pre K and I also work with the families, of course. So, some of the things, I'm just gonna tell a few little things that I get to do. We do outreach events. We even go in parks in the summer and invite people from

019apartment buildings to come on down so we can get to know families. So that's just one little thing that we do in the summer. There's a parenting component also that we get to go and do home visits at their houses and talk to them about their kids and ask them what they love about their kids and also be able to share some insight too and invite them into classes. We do lots of paperwork. Today I was in a classroom next to a little kiddo who doesn't speak any English and so I was able to do kind of tell her what was going on and do lots of Spanish with her too. So, I work primarily with the Latino population and also without of others. This year a new role I have is I'm teaching, I

020have my teaching degree also so I work as an ELL preschool teacher. So I've got kiddos from lots of different cultures that are in there in a family literacy class on Tuesdays and Thursdays where the families come. They're together for 45 minutes and they do parent child activities and then the parents are learning English while we continue preschool stuff with the kiddos. So that's new this year for me in that role. So it's exciting. - [Mee] Mee Yang. Good evening. I'm excited to be here tonight 'cause I not have not been in this room with this many beautiful people. So. (audience laughing) So thank you for inviting me. My name is Mee Yang and I've been in our district for five years now working as a Hmong cultural liaison for our early ed program and

021our job really is to get the kids into screening, scouting kids who are three and before five to get screening appointments. I assist with screening so that the language barrier isn't there. If there is, then we're there with their first language. We also have a family lit classroom and so we're there to help kids understand and navigate the school system. Paper work. You know, how to behave in school, knowing the rules. So we also assist in classrooms as well and we have a chance to do some kindergartner readiness skills like cutting and getting them into the school system and also transitioning kids into kindergarten. That's the biggest, the first two weeks of school, the biggest adjustment is that piece and getting them on the right bus and that sort of stuff. We also do, like

022Amy said, we're looking for families to get the kids in our program and also so they know that school doesn't start at five but it starts before that. Yeah so, I'm excited about this year because we have the family lit class and our family lit class is full. We have a waiting list so just more for that and I'm part time so it's hard to get all the families we need to reach out there and I think that that's a big part of our job and I love my job. So thank you. - [Sara] Do you have questions for either of our early education-- - [Don] So I want to first off say welcome to both of you. Thank you very much for your work. We really appreciate that and look forward to having you

023both. Before I'll open it up to questions I just want to ask, how's the beginning of the school year going so far? How are things looking? - [Mee] The class is filling up, our pre K class. We have some openings in our pre K class. Still a challenge to get those preschoolers into our classrooms and we are geographically, certain kids can go at certain school only so that's still a challenge to see where they are in getting these families to know us before kindergarten is pretty difficult. So we're trying to get in there but transitioning to kindergarten is going really well. We have paper work all lined up, shot records all lined up and so those kids are ready and we're ready for the year. - [Amy] Yeah, it's going great. I feel like even

024just the past couple weeks when kids were coming in with these scared eyes and where do I go and just seeing them in class to kind of feel like they're comfortable and that's our biggest goal right at first to make them just feel comfortable and welcome. So, it's going well. - [Don] Any other questions? Mr. Wilson? - [Scott] Just a comment and I'm gonna change hats here and put my educational foundational board hat on and while all the liaisons are assembled, I just want to mention two particular funds that the Educational Foundation offers. They both run through the year and one is the clothes closet which is a very clean, professionally run, well stocked closet over in our ALC building through the year and all it takes it some sense of need on behalf of

025a student or their family or both and any staff member can apply on behalf of that student or family and there's a simple email address. It's [email protected] or call Dawn Hank at 651-407-7675 and she can tell you exactly what to do. The other one in our sense of maintaining equal opportunity is the Hanza Family Grant. Again, that runs through the year and it is for extra curricular, co-curricular activities. Sports, artistic pursuits, anything. And, it can apply to activity fees. It can apply equipment if they need to buy equipment to participate, musical instrument. You know, anything. And, any staff, nope that one you have to email the foundation. Same address and stuff. But that runs through the year so if you think you have a student in your charge that would like to participate but feels

026held back because of financial constraints, here's a possible solution for ya. That's it. (laughing) - [Don] Ms. Fahey? - [Ellen] I have a question. You mention the family class, that there's a waiting list and can you just tell me the size of the class? What's the maximum number in the class and if we have any idea of how many people are on the waiting list? - [Amy] So last year, do you want me to? - [Sara] Yeah. - [Amy] Last year we had only one class and it was birth through age five kiddos in there and their parents and this year we split it into two classes so that's why I'm teaching the three to fives and then there's an early childhood family teacher who teaches the zero to twos and so I have 10

027kids in my class. She has 13 and a lot of them are babies. - [Mee] Eight babies. - [Amy] Eight babies. So, that side is full. My side could still have a few more preschoolers but there's four or five on the waiting list and they're all babies, or zero to two anyway. So. But it's very popular. - [Ellen] Yeah. It's just, to me, it seems like (laughing) it'd be nice if we had another class to accommodate the parents for that. - [Amy] Yeah and part of that at early childhood is we are maxed out of our building so it's a space issue because there are teachers who would teach that and it's just where do we hold them? - [Ellen] We have our facilities planning. - [Amy] Right, that's good. - [Sara] Thank you. -

028[Don] Any other questions, comments? Okay, thank you, go. I'm sorry, Ms. Beloyed. - [Deb] I was just wondering is that not something we can accommodate in any other building? - [Wayne] We could. It's tricky. I mean, we've had some, we've looked around a little bit throughout the community for space that actually isn't in school but that's difficult because of different codes and different services that we need to provide students but it's a continual challenge at the pre K and we do have pre K programming spread throughout the district as well as a center base so I think we're doing the best we can with the space we have throughout the district. So we actually do have programming in some of our schools as well. So, but this particular class that they're referencing, I think that's

029just a matter of not having the space at Normandy Park. Right? - [Deb] I have one more question. - [Don] Go ahead. - [Deb] How is it, how do you find these families? I mean, it's obviously really easy to find them once they come in and register for kindergarten but is it just word of mouth because of the families that are already there? I mean, how do you find these families to reach out to them? - [Mee] We get very creative. (laughing) Usually through word of mouth. That's usually the one. Sometimes we do a lot of door knocking. Going in the neighborhood, having events and then having them come to us and sometimes we go to kindergartner's classroom where they talk to the EL teachers and they say, oh, so and so talk about a

030sister or brother that's not in our census so they have the kids who are in school in census but they don't have the early ed or the younger kids in census. So (mumbles) families enables. - [Amy] But the door knocking happens when we have an event to invite them to so maybe they answer the door but we'll put a flyer up that says, on Thursday we have this event in your park. Please come, bring the whole family. We're gonna tell you more about White Bear programming so we do that kind of stuff in the summer. But we also get some lists of people to call and just invite them to the community baby shower and we get to know families that way and then sometimes so and so invites their neighbors and so it's kind

031of a word of mouth thing too. - [Mee] We utilize the closet mentioned. We also utilize the food shelf. That's a big draw in for our families. When we bring a family into an appointment and pick up food, they tell their neighbors and they're the ones that call us and say, hey, how 'bout this? Or, we have a coat drive in our early ed program and so where we give out coats, gently used coat. Then they call and say, hey, we need a coat. So we tap those families into our program as well. - [Don] Mrs. Newmaster? - [Marge] I was just gonna say that as liaison to the early childhood program, I was just at (mumbles) Oh it depends on the school. - [Sara] For early childhood? - [Marge] Yeah. - [Sara] Yeah, there's

032a PTA in there. - [Marge] That's what I thought. It's PTA. But anyway, I'm a member of that so I've attended it. This is my third year now and I was gonna say, the baby shower gets promoted through the community at mailings. They had some really cute pictures out. And that goes to everybody. So I think that's one way. And they were just talking about how they're gonna staff the upcoming fall community baby shower but it's really sponsored by the early childhood and the volunteers and then there's another one in the spring so the babies may come out of the woodwork at that point. You just don't know. - [Sara] They do, yup. - [Marge] Not where babies come from. (people whispering) - [Don] Okay. I think we can move on. - [Sara] Yeah. We're

033gonna transition here to our other liaisons but while we're doing that, keep your thinking going with early childhood. Tim Mauer I know is gonna be prepared and excited to share any information in regards with our World's Best Workforce work. If you happen to have a question come up, I know he's been a big part of the back work on preparing that work. So I just want to make sure to mention that and then if our other liaisons can come up here. I'm gonna step aside just so that they can have a chance to make sure that they are able to speak into the mic and they will introduce themselves. - [Don] Perfect, welcome. - [Briana] Thank you. So, as you can see there's a person missing and we are in the process of hiring a

034Hmong liaison to work with us. I'm Briana Santoscoy. I'm the district wide cultural liaison with Latino students and families. (speaking softly) (speaks a foreign language) - [Jordan] My name is Jordan Zickermann and I am the Native American cultural liaison and Indian Education Program contact. - [Michael] I am Michael Jett. I am the African American cultural liaison for the district. - [Briana] And so we have been very, very busy since the very first day of August when we came back doing everything from enrolling students to getting everything set up for our mentorship groups. We all have different mentorship groups, K 12, across the district in different schools, connecting with parents, making sure that their needs are met. They have what their kids need for school. Thank you to whoever donated all the backpacks. I don't know

035if that was you guys or not but we've also all brought many families to the closet. So we appreciate all that work. What else? And meeting with students on an individual basis. I think our job ranges from everything, like I said, from enrollment to, for me, translation of commonly used documents that a lot of schools are using and kind of streamlining that process. Everything from that to transportation, working with students who have very serious, specific needs whether they're behavior or need a lot of resources, all that beyond just the language need piece. And so, we were each gonna share one particularly exciting thing, right, that we are working on this school year. There's a lot of things but we don't have time to name them all. Do you want to start with PIQE? - [Michael]

036Ah yes. About a month ago we did a PIQE training, the three of us, which is like a nine week program to help parent engagement, kind of help them with learning how to set short term goals and help with financial aid and how to fill out grant paper work and am I missing anything? - [Briana] Well I mean, yeah, just how to support their students in school, right? Really everything that we do aligns with that triangle that they talk about in PIQE and I don't know if you've seen it but the triangle at school and Tim and I, oh he left, but we were just talking about this triangle this morning. School, community, and parents, families and with the students in the center that that's the way to really ensure student success is when all

037three of those are working together and that's how we spend all of our time. It's connecting with one of those points of the triangle or with the heart of the triangle directly. Did you want to share the other? - [Jordan] Well so, we did those trainings so now we're really gonna kind of take a step back now that we have all this information and this curriculum to use with our families and our community, how do we really utilize this advice. So that's currently the step that we're out now that we've had a diverse set of staff. There were numerous staff that came and participated beyond ourselves in that training. So that's really exciting. So that's to come but another thing that I would also like to talk about, as we said, we all do student

038groups. Being K 12 staff, it's a really good way to meet a lot of students at one time on top of having those one on one interactions. So, we all run student groups. I, this year, my position is different in that last year I was also the African American liaison so it's been great to have a new team member added so we can really give our students the attention that each of them deserve. So with that, this year we are really excited with all the student groups that we have. Just to name a few, Black Girl Magic just started. Just Us is a diversity equity and inclusion student platform for students to have discussions around diversity and equity in our schools and community and collaboratively problem solve with staff in the school district. That was

039something that we did last year and it starts tomorrow so I would like to openly invite any of you to come. Come to the table. It's bi weekly during lunches at South Campus and I'm also going to be starting an Indian education book club. This year the, well last year I should say, the Indian Education Program purchased about 50 different books, all written by Indigenous authors which we're really excited about so we're gonna be rolling out, we've already kind of started but we're gonna be rolling out book clubs at Central, Sunrise, South, North, and the ALC to start and then grow into the K through five. So a really, really exciting opportunity that we have coming up here just in about a week or two is the Urban Leadership Academy so the Urban Leadership Academy

040is something that White Bear Lake in the past has sent upwards of like 12 staff to come participate in an all day workshop slash PD but it's an opportunity for multiple different district leaders to come together and get a great, I don't want to say TED talk, but it's kind of like that and this year we thought it would be really cool with student agency in mind to invite our students to attend the Urban Leadership Academy so I believe there's four different dates and of those we're gonna be sending upwards of six students to three of them. So, for our first one it's on October third and we're gonna be sending two student leaders from Black Girl Magic, two students from Just Us, and then we are gonna also be sending two students who have

041been heavily in the parent committee, the American Indian Parent Committee. So we're really excited about that. - [Briana] Yes and then one last thing and ULA is an initiative of U of M and so it's open to districts, a lot of different districts so the fact that students will be able to participate will be kind of a fresh perspective, I think. - [Jordan] And then finally, we're doing an ISI which is Intentional Social Interaction and Mee's collaborating with us on this at Willow Elementary this week and it's the first one that we'll be doing this year and it's one, it's a specific kind of community event. We've done a lot of other different community events with our respective communities but this one is typically student run. We have student involvement in this one but it's

042really a chance just for the community to get together and the idea is that you sit down with someone that you think seems very different from you or that you've never met before or that you don't know and there are sort of question cards that you discuss about how to best support your student, what your own experience was like in school. It's just, it's to build community and to get people connected with other parents and staff at the school. So we're excited about that. Lots of things happening simultaneously. - [Sara] So do you have any questions? - [Don] First of all, I want to thank you all for your work. I mean, that's great stuff and we're excited to continue to hear about that, everything that's going on in the district. So with that, I'll

043open it up to questions. I have a quick one. Michael, how long have you been on the job in White Bear? (laughing) - [Michael] It's a full month (laughing). - [Don] Welcome. - [Michael] Thank you sir. - [Don] Anything else? Ms. Newmaster. - [Marge] I'm just gonna say I'm impressed with all the things and the old librarian in me says especially the book club. (people laughing) - [Don] Ms. Fahey. - [Ellen] Can I just, the PIQE, now if I remember it's parents in quality education. Is that what it stands for? So it's for parents to help. - [Michael] It's for parents, yes. - [Ellen] Okay. I thought I remembered that acronym from way back when but-- - [Don] I just looked it up in case somebody asked. - [Ellen] Yeah and that's what-- - [Don]

044Parent Institute for Quality Education. - [Ellen] Yeah, institute. That's what, I couldn't remember that one and that was originally through Equity Alliance Minnesota that helped it with us and that, you know, sorry to put in the plug but it's a very valuable group that we belong to also with at our meeting last Wednesday night, Equity Alliance Minnesota as you know, Mrs. Paul, was held here and Tiffany Dietrich and Kathy Olson who run the Just Us program presented on their trip, the arc of the moral universe that they took this summer, visiting iconic civil rights places in the south with the idea of hoping to expand that to further trips for teachers, students, et cetera. So, through Equity Alliance Minnesota we're looking at some, hopefully some grant opportunities for that and then we have had ISIs

045in the district before so I am looking forward to the one at Willow on this Thursday evening. So, hope to see a lot of people there. - [Sara] Yeah, it's gonna be good. - [Ellen] So thank you very much for your work and Michael, it was nice to meet you at convocation. - [Don] Any other questions? All right, thank you very much. - [Group] Thank you. - [Sara] Before these folks get up just one, you can just see by the way they talk they do their work as a team, not only with each other but with other staff members and they all lean into the work and just bring so much excitement and number one, they listen to people. It is unbelievable how many students have been empowered by their engagement already this year and

046what they built upon last year and I'm very proud to work with them so, thank you. - [Briana] Thank you. - [Don] Thank you. - [Jordan] Thank you. - [Don] Now we'll move onto the next discussion item, B2, which is the World's Best Workforce annual report. Ms. Paul. - [Sara] Chair Mullin, Dr. Kazmierczak, members of the board, Brian Morris has done extensive work on preparing the data for us to have a conversation about the state level data in particular that informs the World's Best Workforce report that you are required as a board to hold an annual hearing which we will do at the next official school board meeting but we wanted to go over the data tonight with you in advance of that official meeting. So, as many of you are familiar with, the statute

047around striving for the World's Best Workforce identifies milestones on a child's journey that we as a system need to make sure that we are taking a look and pausing to think about the system we have in place and consider changes that we have to make to continually better serve the needs of our students. All students ready for kindergarten, all third graders can read at grade level. All achievement gaps between students are closed. All students are ready for career and or post secondary education and all students graduate from high school and along with informing us with this data, this is actually a poem that one of the students in our schools at the start of the school year had as kind of a guideline for how this student wanted to approach their learning this year and

048I just wanted to take a minute to share this with you because I think it's important that as we look at state data and we look for opportunities that any data can provide us opportunities to improve, this is what we want students to see. We don't want students to see themselves defined by any one test score but yet we want to use test scores to improve as a system and the student wrote here, I am in competition with no one. I run my own race. I have no desire to play the game of being better than anyone in any way, shape, or form. I am to improve to be better than I was before and that's me. I'm free. Powerful and that's what we want our students to feel each and every day that they

049come to school and to do that, we need to make sure that as a system we are taking serious look at every data opportunity that we get and finding ways that we can improve so that this child and every child can have this type of experience in our classrooms. So, Mr. Morris is going to take us through the data and then pause at each of these milestones in order to ask questions as we move forward. - [Brian] Thank you very much. So my goal is to provide you some context around each of the goals and the metrics, what the data is for, some of them are shorter term, just year to year goals. Some of them are longer term goals and this small amount of related trend data and then just open each one up

050for questions or clarifications you might have as we go along. Our first piece of World's Best Workforce data is that all students are ready for kindergarten. The way that we originally chose to measure that is the number of students who are participating in our early childhood screening and this, I think, segues nicely from some of the conversation we're having with Amy and Mee around how we reach out to our kids, how we support our kids. Early childhood screening is, for many families, their first touch point with our school district so we're reaching out and screening for additional services to benefit our kids and prepare them for kindergarten. Our goal was a three percent increase. This is a one year metric in World's Best Workforce. Three percent increase from 2017 to 2018. We actually had a

051small decrease. We had 667 kids screened in 2017, 625 screened in 2018. A lot of that is a function of how many children are born within our district. They're also screened. We were screening kids for our district for other schools and kids have a lot of other opportunities for screening. But just to provide you what that is, we have increased screening over the past four years about three percent and I was talking with Tim just earlier today, our screening is booked solid so far. I think it said through December this year and as you heard earlier, our early childhood enrollment is way up this year. And Mr. Mauer was just gonna speak a little bit to that. - [Tim] Yeah just (mumbles) we talked about it earlier with Ms. Yang up here too about we

052sent out information for the census forms to try to know who's in our district because we want them to know that they are Bears and they're here to be in White Bear and they really do take to heart that they are the first touch point, the first contact, of a lot of these families. So this is just an example of when we have the birthing documents we send out. We send out the onesies and the information for birth to two classes for parents and family lit and ECFE. This is a follow up to that for our screening so we also send out an overview of early childhood programming. So parents know what opportunities are available to them. In the back, like Mee mentioned, there is a census form. So we have all the most up

053to date data we can on the families that we're serving. A couple of coupons and then just to let them know that they are a Bear (audio cuts out) items to go out to them as well too. So as Brian mentioned, we do have, we're booked out through December and Kate works really hard to try to find new opportunities and how we can increase people coming in but it is limited with parent's availability. We talked about doing things at night. But that's not the best time of day for little ones that have been busy all day to do any kind of testing. We're not really getting their best selves with us but she did offer, we have a Saturday class, a Saturday morning option in January that we're offering as well too that is starting

054to get people enrolled in them too. So just any ways we can get additional kids through our doors and we can screen and see them is what we're trying to do. - [Sara] So do you have any questions about those milestones? - [Don] Any questions? Ms. Beloyed. - [Deb] Isn't the early childhood screening, don't all of the kids have to do it before they come into kindergarten? I thought that was a requirement. - [Tim] Yup. So that is the requirement so I believe, and Sara can correct me if I'm wrong, so if they come to kindergarten not screened, we try to get them screened within the first 30 days. So if they happen to come in from somewhere else or didn't have to get an opportunity to do them, we will catch them and then

055we have to have them screened within the first 30 days of school. - [Deb] So the three percent, what was that number based on? Just we wanted to reach out to more? - [Brian] Wanting to always increase our, yeah, increase our impact. Increase the number of kids that we reach out to and, I mean, the idea of early screening is to identify services for support in preparation for kindergarten. And like Tim was saying, we're not turning anybody away whether or not they've been screened on the first day of school but the earlier we can screen them, the earlier we can get them involved in support that we have, screen them for special ed services and the earlier that that can happen, the better. - [Deb] I guess what was going through my mind was even

056if we screened, they all came in six months before kindergarten and we had screened every single one of them, that number could be 550. I mean, it's kind of an arbitrary-- - [Tim] There have been some discussions about what metric might better reflect kindergarten readiness than the number of students screened. - [Deb] Right. - [Tim] There have been conversations about that so there'll likely be changes to that. - [Deb] And that's just kind of what's going through my head that it's just kind of-- - [Brian] Right, it's a how many. - [Sara] I think it's like many things. When World's Best Workforce came out looking an existing metric of screening early and saying how do we get that priority in place and for students, for families in districts to know the importance of screening early,

057that metric rose to the one that was the way we were asked to measure readiness from but as Dr. Kazmierczak indicated, I think we've gotten more sophisticated even as MDE has looked at how to really look at readiness and we'll be making some shifts. - [Don] Any other questions? Okay. Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Wilson. - [Scott] Well actually we're not there yet. You have much more of a sequence, okay, yeah, I'll just hold off. - [Brian] The third, or I'm sorry, the second metric is that all third graders can read at grade level. Third grade is often seen as the transition from the students sort of learning, directly learning to read to beginning to use their reading to learn and that is happening. All kids are growing at different rates and at different times but

058third grade is often thought of as the time when that happens. Our goal is around MCA reading proficiency levels. So, the percentage of our students who are meeting or exceeding MCA benchmarks at the end of third grade. Our goal for this, it was a one year goal, was a two percentage point increase from 2017 to 2018. We didn't quite make that goal. We had a small one year increase of about a half of a percentage point from 64.6% to 65.1%. Looking at it a little bit broader, overall at the elementary level for, just, again, looking at 2017 versus 2018, at the elementary level we did have a 2.3 percentage point increase in the number of kids who are that proficient or above level. For the work that we do we try to look at more

059leading indicators, more of a cohort view, how are our kids growing as the proceed through the system. If we look at that cohort view from last year's third graders then moving into fourth grade, 80% had medium to high growth as measured by the MCA and they did have a three point increase moving from the third grade to fourth grade. So we are seeing not only that year to year growth in the intermediate level within elementary but we're seeing last year's third grade cohort showing growth from one year to the next. And, questions around the students reading at grade level by third grade metric? - [Don] Ms. Beloyed. - [Deb] What was the, Hugo was recognized at convocation for what was their new elementary? It was 80 some percent? Do you remember what that? 'Cause I

060thought that was on, it was either reading or? - [Brian] I think it was their reading level. - [Sara] And math data. - [Tim] It wouldn't have been their MCA data. That was the, you're talking Hugo Elementary was-- - [Deb] Yeah. - [Tim] Whatever the measure they were using it was like 80% roughly. - [Sara] Yeah we have MAP testing that we use for primary learners as well as the reading inventory looking at reading at grade level. - [Tim] And that's what was, it was the reading inventory that was shared. - [Deb] But they were like at 80 some percent. - [Brian] Yeah, I don't know the exact number but your memory is correct. It was approximately 80% of their students, their reading level so am I reading at a C level book? Is a

061book for me an F level book? 80% of their students were at that reading level and, again, that's one of the metrics that we use, especially in the primary grades where we don't have MCA to look at it. - [Deb] Do we know if they did anything different? I mean, because that was a really good number and I'd love to see it, how that translates when all of those kids transition over to Omica at that point to see if that continues on. - [Sara] I think there's a lot to celebrate in different areas around the district in that they definitely have done a really good job. The literacy coach there, not only is she doing pushing into support teachers but she also does follow up in terms of deepening their ability to teach different interventions.

062We call them tier two interventions and she's been, our literacy coaches have been a lead on a lot of the things we want to talk to about things that we've identified that we need to improve on. Deb, along with the other literacy coaches are seeing that we need to look at deepening the skills with phonemic awareness, initial letter sounds for early learners and that's just, it's been a key way that they've added to really looking at our comprehensive literacy program and where the gaps are right now. When you compare, like as Brian said, we really like to compare cohort analysis when we're looking about student achievement but even when you compare year to year and you see kind of a trend emerge that there might be a gap in our curriculum, the literacy coaches have

063been instrumental in identifying that. They've changed our kindergarten assessment. We're got interim assessments that are aligned to the state's standards that are quicker feedback loops for teachers to use in order to get to some of those areas of our comprehensive literacy program that we're thinking are system improvements. - [Don] Any other questions? Ms. Fahey. - [Ellen] I just, clarification. So when we're looking at the MCA, the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment, we're looking at one test result that they traditionally do towards the end of the school year. - [Brian] Yup, in the spring. - [Ellen] Whereas when we're looking at MAP, the Measures of Academic Progress, we're looking at their growth throughout the year. - [Brian] Throughout the year and year to year. - [Ellen] Yeah and from year to year so that's an important distinction because

064I remember in middle school paying attention to their growth rate. That's a very important thing to look at also. - [Brian] Right and this just, the metrics that we report out for instance here are, like you said, one test and that's a proficiency, did they make it over a certain bar? But the assessments that we really work with as we aim towards that bar are things like the MAP and growth. At the primary level, the BASS kit we've done professional development with our teachers this year to use this BASS kit as their common interim assessments so they're looking at comprehension. They're looking at accuracy. They're looking at fluency. And within that accuracy is where they're boring down to the challenges in phonemic awareness, how the kids hear and produce language or reading. - [Sara] I

065do want to add though that one of the things that we've had to deal with as a system is the issue of over testing and so we used to give the MAP test a couple of times of year. Because we don't have an MCA, we're required to give the MCA exam. We are not required to give the MAP test and so we use the MAP test for our early primary grades. We do not use the MAP test as regularly as we used to and for teachers it was frustrating that, we want to make sure we have clarity about what it means to improve a grade level as students move through the system which is what the MCA is meant to do but these interim assessments that are biting off smaller chunks so to speak so

066that they can really see what a student understands and then just instruction or provide additional support for students, interim assessments are now aligned to the MCA and then it's not just about this one end of year test and then you're trying to give a test for MAP that has different things on it and not necessarily the same way that you would approach preparing a student for an MCA so we really are trying to be responsive to, I think, an important question that teachers have had in terms of external assessments. We want the external accountability but we don't want so much that it becomes an over testing environment and we're really trying to make sure we have assessments that are really being used to adjust instruction and then we use the MCA results to be one

067way that we look at our system's success. - [Ellen] That was gonna be my next question because I know that the MAP test you can do, you know, like a fall and a spring plus a winter and because of the over testing, do we just do the fall and the spring? - [Brian] We do first and second grade. We do fall, winter, spring because we don't have the MCA in first and second grade and then in third through eighth, we do just the winter. So a measure of progress at that point and then they have the MCA in the spring. Actually in ninth grade where we don't have any state testing, we do the fall and spring also so we can continue to track that growth in reading and math that leading up to 10th

068and 11th. - [Ellen] Thank you. - [Don] Ms. Buloyed. - [Deb] This is one technical question. Are the special ed and EL and those numbers are included in our overall MCA scores, right? Those aren't separated out? - [Brian] Correct. - [Deb] Okay, I just wanted to verify that. - [Tim] Yeah, they are part of the whole. - [Don] Okay, other questions? - [Brian] All right. Our next metric looks at closing achievement and opportunity gaps. For this we've looked at a long term outcome of participation equity in courses that bear college credit. So we have AP course, we have college in the school, project, Lead the Way courses and concurrent enrollment courses that we have agreements with colleges other than the University of Minnesota. And, over the past four years, participation has been increasing and gaps

069have been closing. So you'll see, our metric looks at just 11th and 12th graders so the percentage of 11th and 12th graders that are participating in a college credit bearing course during that year and again, do we have equitable participation across racial and ethnic demographic groups and free and reduced lunch, or economic groups? Our participation bar has increased. Since 2016, 51% of our 11th and 12th graders were participating. In 2018, the bar was all the way up to 61%. Right now for 2019, 66% of our 11th and 12th graders are participating, currently participating in a class and as that bar is increasing, gaps have been closing. Right now when we look at students that are black or African American, Hispanic students and Asian students that are from medium to high income families from 1999 that

070gap has closed. All of their participation gaps aren't fully closed but as we're raising the bar, we're moving in that direction. - [Don] Ms. Newmaster. - [Marge] I'm always glad to see that more kids are participating and that push was beginning before I retired. That was probably about three years ago it was really analyzed and one of the things that participants who were the educators were concerned about was support and success because it's not enough to participate. You have to participate and succeed in the class. So, while these are interesting statistics, I'd like to know how many people who participated, succeeded in at least getting the minimum to, let's say, get the college credit like the three level and a college in the schools and then have that broken out by the kids that we

071really encourage to take it that hadn't ever done anything like that. So, how are we doing scaffolding supports so these kids are successful and not discouraged? - [Brian] That's a great question. I completed a study at about this time last year for the previous year and I have not done it yet for the 2018 school year but I looked at, you can look, looking at how students earn college credit is tough because for every one of those types of classes that I mentioned, there's a different bar. Right? Especially AP, depending on what the AP course is. It can be a three or a four and there's a lot of combinations. So last year, looking at the previous year, I just looked at students who achieved a grade of C or higher in all of these

072courses. And again, a C or higher, you know, part of why we're working on participation, part of it is the college credit but a huge part of it is students seeing themselves as being able to be successful in post secondary education, yup, and participating in that rigorous class. So that idea of a C in a class is strong participation in the class. There were some small gaps. And again, I don't have numbers in front of me to give you but there were very small but small enough to say that our students who were being supported, identified, recruited, and supported into those classes who might not have seen themselves in those classes before were achieving at a C or higher level in very similar rates to all other groups. So, you know, it also pointed towards

073there's some work to do. That some of those supports need to continue and improve but it was pointing in the right direction. - [Marge] I'm glad we're looking at it and I'm looking at it also as an educator who spent a lot of years in the trenches and I know that sometimes the, quote, advanced and honors classes were like the highest enrollment classes in the school and you may have, you know, a college in the school's American history class for 10th graders with 38 or 40 kids and then if you've got a larger percent of those kids obviously that have skills they still have to hone to be successful, it's not gonna work. So I mean, we've got all kinds of angles to make sure this works because I'd hate to see the kids get

074discouraged and I know there's changes at the community college level because I have friends that work there where the FEDs are not paying tuition for the readiness classes and so our kids have to ready to succeed or they're gonna crash and burn quickly. So I'm just asking what kind of supports are we giving within the school so our kids not only participate but really, you know, their toolboxes gets more full every year. - [Sara] I just want to point to three intentional ways that students are supported. First, our guidance counselors play a critical role in this work. Secondly, students each identify in a survey process trusted adults that end up playing a critical role not only through encouraging students that showing that they have the data, qualitative or quantitative data show that they can be

075successful but then following through and working with them. Our liaisons play a critical role in making sure that families are part of the conversation and that they understand the opportunity and then our teachers go through additional training in order to think about their instruction in a way that's gonna meet the needs of all of the students in their class. So it is a comprehensive way that we're approaching this and I appreciate the question. I think our data is encouraging and I think our students that should be in these classes are getting the opportunities and they are thriving. But we continue to learn, that's for sure. - [Don] Mr. Wilson. - [Scott] Yes Brian and Sara, do you consider the career pathways work, technical certifications, as part of college granting credit? - [Brian] The courses that

076do grant credit, yes. - [Scott] But not apprenticing, apprenticeships per se? - [Brian] No but you'll see in our next metric, our college and career readiness metric we do look at those as part of the World's Best Workforce but in our career pathways, there is, I'm trying to, two of the IT courses are associated with college credit and one of the health courses or we may not-- - [Sara] Yes, yes for sure. One of the health courses and then we are continuing to request Saint Paul College on working on both construction and manufacturing being current enrollment courses. - [Scott] Welding, C and C punch operation? Welding or C and C punch operation? - [Sara] Yes, yep. And then so we actually have welding credits through the ALC that count, a welding aligned class but in

077terms of overall-- - [Scott] That would be only for the ALC students, wouldn't it? - [Sara] Which is concluded. I mean, they've got early college opportunities at the ALC so but in terms of our pathways as a whole, we are working on, our initial step is articulation agreements and Jen Babbish is here. She's new to the district this year and she's doing a phenomenal job of moving that work forward but we need to make sure that all of the higher learning commission requirements are met and so we are looking for those opportunities to be in place next year but it is, we're being creative at how we're looking at articulation, how articulation credits can be converted into college credits by the time they graduate. You just have to take one college level course at the

078institution before you graduate and then the other ones are converted. So that's getting a little granular on it but it's very, very important to our students. In the United Way survey and focus groups that they did that they want our pathway classes to have concurrent enrollment opportunities and we are working to make that happen. - [Don] Mr. Chapman? - [Kim] Mention's made of participation rate at 67.6% for students of color that come from families with medium or high income. What about those that are in the lower income level? Do you have an idea of what the percentage participation rate is there? - [Brian] I don't have a percentage because the way that we look at this metric is in number of kids needed to close the participation gap and we are having a harder time

079closing that gap with regardless of race or ethnicity. We're struggling more with the economic background component. So, and I have a picture of what I call a gap chart in my mind from 2017, or I'm sorry, from 2018, not our current participation gap chart but I know, you know, we are talking about ranges from two to five students within a specific, within may of the groups. So, let's say, we need five students within this category from a lower income family background to reach equity within that group. But yeah, that's a good pickup that the lower socioeconomic participation gap is, we're bumping up against that a little harder so that's where our focus and efforts need to find ways in which we can support those kids so they can see themselves find success there. - [Sara]

080I think what Brian just said is really critically important and that's we don't want any student entering into our system that their race or their background is a predictor of the outcomes they have in our system and so we are looking at what we have to do to change as a system. Things that we maybe think make sense that when you look at, it's actually proposing a barrier for some students and for students who have had siblings or have friends that have accessed these courses, it's just part of their expectation of what they think high school's gonna be and it requires us to really think differently of how we're communicating, how we're reaching out, how we're helping them see themselves in these opportunities and then being responsive to the things that they see as barriers.

081Brian I think, you see it here, but he takes very technical ways of looking at data and he's able to help people make sense of it and see how they can play a role in helping students have a great experience here in White Bear Lake. He can get real technical and then he can also roll it up and also have it make sense to people which I think has been a key part of people feeling involved in this whole process. - [Brian] Are we ready to move on to the next? - [Don] Yes please. - [Brian] The next is looking at having all of our students' career or post-secondary, oh, it's not coming up. (speaking softly) Uh-oh. That means you just gotta look at me talk. That's gonna be rough. All right. All students being

082career or college ready or ready for post secondary education and for this we look at two measures and both of them are measures that Mr. Wilson and Ms. Newmaster referred to. The first captures developmental coursework. Right? So coursework that kids would take in college but is not considered college level coursework and we have a goal of minimizing the percent of our students who have to take developmental coursework. Our long term goal is 15% of those students, 15% of our graduates, so class of 2018 graduates, 15% or less will need to take developmental coursework. And we're really on our way towards that. This is a metric that we don't know whether or not we made it until two years after the fact because you don't, the measure is developmental coursework within their first two years but

083we've moved from 35% of the class of 2012 participated in developmental coursework and our latest year that we have data for is the class of 2016 and only 19% of that class has needed to take developmental coursework. And we have, like I said, we're really positive and hopeful that we will make that goal of 15% and just thinking of reasons behind that, our first year right now, we have two courses where we have agreements between Century College and our courses at South Campus, our language arts 12 class and our algebra three trigonometry class. Both of the classes are modeled on the requirements for developmental course at Century College and there's an agreement between us and Century that students who achieve a level of success in those classes will be able to bypass that developmental coursework

084once they get to Century. Our first year for the language arts 12 class was the class of 2017 so here's a class that has more kids who can bypass that language arts developmental coursework. So hopefully, like I said, we'll see that percentage of students skipping over developmental coursework. Hopefully we'll see the percentage needing a decrease in the percent of kids who can skip it to increase. (man speaking softly) - [Don] I think it may seem obvious but why is it so important? What's the? - [Brian] Because we want to begin college taking college classes. We don't want to begin college, you know, taking a class that doesn't earn us college credit. The kids who do have to take classes that don't earn college credit are much more likely to not make it to a college

085credit bearing class. So, you know, not only are we starting, helping our kids start with college level classes but we're helping them get over a hurdle that traditionally has kept kids from being successful in college in college credit bearing classes. So like I said, we've got two goals within this metric. The second is to maximize participation in our career pathways. So in our manufacturing, construction, IT, and health careers pathways and we're very well, well, that is a year to year goal. We've, in my opinion, blown our year to year goal out of the water. In 2011, our goal was to move from nine percent of students to 12% of our students having participated in a career pathway course in any given year and we are actually at 16%. When we first began this goal, it

086was just around 11th and 12th graders but our career pathway courses have expanded in our offerings and it expanded well through ninth grade that, like I said, our original goal was to have 12% of 11th and 12th graders participate. Right now we're having 16% of our ninth through 12th graders participate. It's a little heavier at South Campus but it's not a huge difference. Right now, this year, we have 283 kids participating at South. 255 kids participating in a career pathway class at North and, like I said, this is moving towards seeing them in a living wage career, moving both career exploration and a path towards certification and a career within our specific pathways. So questions about that metric? - [Don] Mr. Wilson? - [Scott] Not a question. My compliments to the both of you for

087the work in that regard and I'd like you to pass those along, please, to the faculty involved. It is just stupendous work and look forward very much to carrying it on because it does address a sore need that used to exist in our student body that is now being filled with, not filler, but real life potential for a good career. Thank you. - [Brian] Certainly. Okay, all right. And our fifth metric is all students graduating from high school and this is, the state sets this as a four year rate. So all students will graduate in four years. Our goal for the class of 2017, and just to, it's a little tough to wrap your brain around some of these metrics because some of them from last year. Some of them like graduation rate, graduation rate

088isn't official until February so we're just talking about the class of 2017. Our class of 2017, we did not reach our goal for the class of 2017. Our four year rate for the class of 2017 was 88.7%, so almost 89% and our graduation rate over the past five years has vacillated between about 88 and 92% and like I said, we did not reach that 92% like we had hoped in 2017. Looking at what those students, what happened after graduation, right? That's one of the positives about having a metric that's a little older. Like I said, 88.7% graduated in four years. 6.9% continued on to continue to work towards graduation in our district and a little over four percent were in the drop out or unknown category. That 6.9%, that was 41 students from the class

089of 2017. Of those 41 students, 26, so two thirds of them, have graduated since then. Of those 41 students, like I said, 26 or two thirds graduated. 12 of them are still working towards graduation at either the ALC or at Tech because this includes transition students also and three of those continuing students have dropped out. Of the students who were dropped out or unknown, they moved out of state and were not picked up by another school that we know of, things along those lines, two of those students have graduated. So, ALC worked to find those students that we had lost contact with, got them back, got them graduated in the past year and one of those students is still continuing on at the ALC. So even though our four year rate was not what we

090had hoped with the class of 2017, we've added 28 more kids. Close to half of those who didn't graduate have graduated within that fifth year. So, you know, that's looking at ways that not all kids learn and grow at the same speed but we have supports in place for those who do need more than the four years for graduation. So just to provide some context there. So questions around graduation rate? (people speaking softly) - [Man] You might not know this because we don't have a program but does GED factor in to the graduation rate? - [Brian] That's one of the frustrating things about graduation rate. If you drop out of high school and complete your GED, you are a drop out. So that doesn't, that's something that the student, they have a GED but that

091does not count towards, it doesn't count in our bucket of graduates. - [Don] Ms. Newmaster. - [Marge] I just want to say that I've gone to the transitions graduation the last two years and those kids took an extra couple of years and they were immensely successful so, you know, I like to see those as a success just like whether you graduated in 12 years or 14 years. They're on their way. So I think they really do a great job up there of finding a path that's a fit and supporting the kids till they make the finish line. - [Man] Yeah that 94 and 95% is pretty impressive. - [Brian] It is and just, Sara, I got my note cards here and Sara was pointing at something on my note cards that I hadn't mentioned is

092with those kids, so, 2016 class was a high year. It was over 91% of our students graduated in four years and then 2017, again, was a lower year but when we look at a five year, right? Our five year rate for class of 2016 was a little over 94%. So 94.2%. When we include in our class of 2017 those that have graduated since then into a five year, we're at 93.4. So almost, if we look at the five year instead of the four, almost the same, less than a percentage point difference in graduation rate. You know, comparing one of our highest years with a lower recent current year. - [Don] Okay, any other questions? Thank you very much for your work and for the information and we'll look forward to continue to get these updates.

093- [Sara] We have to make sure to mention our Area Learning Center. I know it's mentioned in the written notes there but-- - [Brian] Yeah well first off, a lot of this finishing in the fifth year, a lot of that is the ALC's work. One piece, and I really appreciate, the North Star System is a new way that Minnesota is recognizing schools for support and schools for accommodations and our ALC this year was recognized based on their seven year graduation rate. So this is the class of 2017's seven year graduation rate as being one of the top five percent of ALCs in the state. So, you know, it's a school where they really find what their students need. They don't let go of their students. Their students can leave and they pull them back in

094and they are one of the top schools in the state for getting that job done within the seven year graduation rate. So they really deserve kudos for that. - [Don] Thank you very much. - [Brian] Thank you. - [Don] Next we'll move on to discussion item, B3, which is the safety and security update. Mr. Wald? - [Tim] Good evening. Last spring Dr. Kazmierczak signaled our intention to increase the level of professional support we have around safety and emergency management throughout the district. We're fortunate that we were able to hire Mr. Kevin Klecker who's with us tonight. He provides a wealth of professional support and experience at the school level in this area. He came to us August sixth, I think was your first day and he hit the ground running and he'll talk tonight about

095the work he's been doing and priorities and focus areas for this year. So we welcome Kevin Klecker. - [Kevin] Thank you very much. Chair Mullin, school board members, Superintendent Kazmierczak. Thank you for having me tonight. I'll share a little bit about my role here, a little bit about myself and then a little bit about my passion which is creating a safe and welcoming environment in schools. So, to start, there we go. My position is the Safety and Emergency Supervisor for the district. Like you said, I was hired at the end of July and got in just in the nick of time before the school year started. I had a lot to do in those first couple weeks. My new role is gonna be supervising the safety, security, and emergency protocols within the district and then

096I will be reporting, I'm part of Tim's team in the operations division and I'll be reporting to Dan Roeser, just for a little bit of a structural background. I'm also a proud community member. I live in the community. I have a first grade student in one of our schools. A lot of family that live in the community. I wasn't fortunate enough to grow up in White Bear but ever since we moved here about seven years ago we've been incredibly happy with the sense of community and we don't plan on moving out ever. So. - [Tim] He didn't get to choose where he grew up. He just gets to choose where he lives now. (laughing drowns out speaker) - [Kevin] I grew up in Roseville, full disclosure. (man speaking softly) That's right, go Bears, right. Moving

097on to the next slide here. Talk a little bit about my background. I come, my previous role, I spent just under seven years within Minneapolis public schools in a very similar role. I'll talk about my background before that in a second but my previous role was in the private sector and I felt the need to do something where I felt the impact of my work and I felt connected to my work. So, I made that move into the public sector and worked within Minneapolis schools and I couldn't say enough great things about the team there and the work that's being done but there's something about serving your own community that really hits home and when I saw this job open, it was kind of the signal to me that this is what I was meant

098to do. So, I appreciate the opportunity to do that and seek my passion here within White Bear Lake. My, yep, so in my previous role I did a lot of similar things to what I'll be focusing on here and I'll talk about that a little bit later in my focuses and priorities but then I also came from a private sector background so I had about 11 years with a large corporation working in assets protection, security, emergency management, logistics. Kind of all the same components but in a sense I was protecting products and financial numbers rather than kids and staff members and community. So that's my background. Just some of the priorities I set for myself in those first couple weeks. I mean, I came in and had some great conversation with both Assistant Superintendent Wald

099and Dan Roeser about what I really needed to do first and foremost so I kind of lumped it into three categories. The first one being learning the district. So I knew a lot of the schools. I knew a lot of staff members here and I have many staff members in my community or my direct neighborhood that work here so I knew a lot about the district and having a daughter in the district I knew a lot of what was going on but really wanted to familiarize myself with all the buildings and the staff members. So, I did visit every school site before school started in that very short time frame. I actually got to a good majority of them twice. Had some great conversations with all the key leaders in those schools. I connected with

100all key leaders in some of the departments in the district. I remember second day, I believe, I was talking to Tim's team and the folks that support his work in community services. So I was really working on learning those key players in this district and who can support me in different ways and who I can support in different ways. The third piece there is reviewing existing protocols and procedures. So I know a big portion of what I'm gonna be working on is the emergency response plan in the district. So familiarizing myself with that and how we've done things in the past, what we've got in place, and what we have, or have I already identified as things we really need to focus on getting better or making more of a structure around. The second piece

101is supporting schools. So like I said, I met with every principal individually, had a great conversation. There's amazing talent out in the district and I'm very excited to be part of that. A lot of tenure which feels great because a lot of these principals have experienced just about everything and they had a lot of good background for me. We also sat down and talked about these safe school grants which we did apply for. I'll talk about a little bit later but we had a great conversation around that and what that looks like and what is needed above and beyond that in the future. I also went out and supported during dismissals that first week, we all know how, especially at the lower ages how dismissals can be. It's a fun and exciting time but also

102it can be a lot of energy around that moment so I got to get out to schools and be a part of that and help in any way I could. I didn't get to every site, obviously, but I got to as many as I could. And I also participated in close to 10 drills already, a combination of fire drills and lockdown drills which leaders invited me into their buildings to be a part of that and sought feedback which I really enjoyed being a part of. - [Tim] The great part about (audio cuts out) observing all that, when he's in there our principals get immediate feedback on the dismissal process or bus drop off process and how the process is flowing. So that's just been kind of one those things that we're really pleased is kind

103of an early step for Kevin. - [Kevin] We always say, you know, in all the jobs I've had in the past kind of security is relationships. So you gotta have those relationships. You gotta have 'em on the ground floor. You gotta have 'em with the leaders. You gotta have 'em your community partners. So without relationships I can't do my work so I rely pretty heavily on those, which is that third part. The portion I kind of listed out there, I already met with White Bear Lake Police Chief Julie Swanson. We had some great conversations. She was actually part of my interview board. I also met with Ramsey County just this last week. We had a great conversation with the Ramsey County sheriff about how we can leverage that partnership both ways and how we can

104support them and how they can support us since they do have buildings that within their jurisdiction. And I also scheduled a meeting later this week with Washington County so talking about our schools in Hugo, the three buildings and how that partnership can be grown. We actually have a collaborative group that's meeting later on even after, I believe it's Friday, with Ramsey County, sorry, Washington County, with all the school districts within that county and kind of coming together and thinking about it holistically. So that's kind of what I've been looking at so far this month and a half that I've been in role. There's obviously many more partners I need to reach out to, other community groups, fire department, emergency responders, the school safety center is a big piece of that too. I know that they're

105a great resource in the state of Minnesota. They have a lot of great information and resources for us as well. So next piece I want to talk about is the school grant, the school safety grants, that were submitted last month. That was something I had to do fairly quickly after I arrived. It sounded like they had a great game plan in place previously so what we kind of wanted to focus on with that grant and when the specifics came out for that grant, we realized that many of those items that were kind of on our checklist were not something that they were gonna fund. So we had to kind of react pretty quickly and determine what can we do. - [Tim] I'll just say a few more things. So what happened with that grant was

106the legislature approved late 25 million dollars in safe school grants but it took them a while to figure out how they were gonna execute that in a very short period of time and so schools like us worked really quickly as soon as that was passed and the grant, the initial grant information was provided. We started putting plans together and then about the time just before Kevin started, they came out with more specifics about what those grants, what would be high priorities and low priorities. We were pretty certain that low priorities weren't gonna get any attention. It had to be high priority items and what we had as our high priority items didn't make their high priority items. So, that caused, put Kevin in a position to really change the conversation we had with principals very

107quickly. - [Kevin] Yup. And it was a great opportunity because it's a good discussion to start that relationship with. So the first thing I did was I did meet with all the principals and kind of worked with them to determine what are the needs in your building when it comes to creating a safe environment. After we had that conversation, we kind of looked at the items that were deemed high priority and the determination was made by the Department of Education as well as the School Safety Center, which is a branch of Homeland Security. So we kind of found where that overlap was and we went through those high priority options and I talked to schools about what makes sense in your buildings and I came across a grouping of things and that's what we submitted

108the grant for. We did submit a total request of 924,000 roughly and that was for all the buildings. We had a really big exception which would be Sunrise on creating a safe and secure entry. Right now if you get buzzed in you're free reined at the building so it was looking at reconfiguring the office like many of our buildings are reconfigured where you would enter into the office space. So outside of that, the projects range from 29 to 85,000 depending on the size of the site or the nature of the site. So the high schools and middle schools required a little bit more as well as the ALC and the tech building because they were a more unique setting. So the things we submitted in the grant and not every one of these were submitted

109for every building but I'll kind of go through which ones were. So the first high priority task or item they had on there was a visitor sign in system and that's a digital system to kind of keep track of who's in your building and when did they get there and this is a great way to make a sticker, visitor badge, so we know who belongs and hey, the stickers today and we know that they have a purpose in our building. I know that there's been some conversation about some privacy implications with those systems and I know we're taking that to the safety committee and we're gonna have that conversation so we applied for a full visitor sign in kiosk but some of those features will be left out until we determine what we want to

110do as a district. The next one on there is a reinforced entries. One of the things that's come up on almost every one of the major school tragedy reviews that have been done by Secret Service or Homeland Security has been reinforcing that point of entry. So, making it so it's not easy for somebody to get in if we don't want them to get in to the front door. So we did apply for that. That's just a simple resistance film that is put on the windows of the front doors and the front windows around the office area or, like in the case of North Campus where the cafeteria is right there, that would be a part of that. The next portion would be a lock down button and that would be a simple button that would

111lock the doors at every school. A lot of our schools already have this in place which would electronically lock even the outer set of doors which are typically left unlocked so people can get in to the office. But there were several schools that did not have that that were identified in those conversations so we were pursuing that and I know through some of the facility planning conversations I have been involved in to this point, which haven't been incredibly extensive but I have been involved in some base discussions, we're looking at making that button do a little bit more with closing the fire doors throughout the building to kind of section off the building. The last piece on that side would be the video intercom system and I heard this very loud and clear from the

112community services team that before and after school care programs that there's a risk there and right now the doors are open for those programs to be welcoming to those families whenever they are there to drop off or pick up their students but it's also creating a pretty big gap in who's getting in the building in the morning and who's monitoring that door. So, we're looking at video intercom system with an option for kind of a more mobile switch so when someone buzzes, the folks in community service can speak to them, see them, and then let them in the door to come pick up or drop off their child. The next portion is additional card readers. So some schools had issues with certain doors being potentially propped or not being able to get students in from

113recess if something were to be happening outside or from the football field or whatever the case may be. So adding card readers to a few select doors so that those are a nice alternative for them to get into the building if they needed to. The next portion we looked at is a visual notification system and this is a gap that was identified. I've actually had some great conversations throughout the district already but in areas such as gymnasiums, auditoriums, lunch rooms, it can be really noisy and a lot of times kids don't hear the announcement, staff don't hear the announcement and this would be a way to, in those key areas, those high traffic, high volume, high noise areas to alert someone that, hey, we've got something going on and it gives you more details on

114what that is. I know I've had a conversation with a staff member who was deaf who kind of brought that to my attention as well that, hey, when something happens, I don't know. I'm not alerted. Sometimes things, they were on lockdown and I didn't know. If I don't have a student in the room to tell me, I don't know. So that's a pretty big gap that we're looking at. So that would be the start of that system which is also tied, the system we're looking at, is actually one of the few that works with Chromebooks, which is why we looked at it 'cause that's, a lot of our district are using those devices and it also includes a notification app. So anybody with their own smart device, whether it be a tablet or a laptop

115or a Chromebook, they can get those notifications. So if staff are in an area that they're not normally, they can get that information. And then the last piece is the secure office configuration which I kind of already touched on regarding Sunrise. - [Don] Can I just stop you one second? Mr. Wilson had a question I want to make sure he gives it. - [Scott] Yes, thank you. - [Kevin] Yes sir? - [Scott] Yes, high priority items but as you walk through our sites, was there anything that impressed you as just an absolutely crying need. - [Kevin] You know, I haven't done full assessments of the buildings and that's something that's high on my priority list, which we'll get to later. I did hear kind of very loudly from the principals that the camera systems are

116very outdated and non-functional in some cases. That was one of the big things. I was actually quite in a good way surprised when I got to the district that the secure offices had been implemented at all the buildings. Coming from Minneapolis with 70 buildings and I can tell you, a lot of those buildings don't have that configuration. It's something that we're really, really pushing for in that district so I was happy to see that. But for the most part, based on starter conversations, with the physical structure, beyond the cameras and some of the buzzer systems, there isn't any screaming need that I saw, no. - [Scott] Thank you. - [Don] All right, thank you. - [Kevin] There we go. So, some of the priorities through conversations with leadership, through conversations with the principals, and Dan

117and Tim and just my own personal snapshot from being out in the buildings, one of the big things that I'm gonna be focusing on is the building emergency response team. That's called out directly in policy that schools are to have that and to use that to prepare the school for any emergency response. In my conversations in buildings, I don't think that this has been very consistent through the district. I mean, there's a team but whether they're getting adequate training, whether they're completing the drills and making the right adjustments, I think there's a lot of room we can grow as a district. So that response team is gonna be a big focus of mine The next piece is just gonna be overall safety and emergency response training. You know, it's called out as well in that

118policy that staff will get continual schedule of training in regards to emergency response and I don't know how often that's been happening in that past. I know there have been some and that we have the safety committee that has those conversations but I think that we could do a lot more to prepare our staff via those response teams and other trainings that we can just offer to staff in general. Then the third portion is the building emergency response plan updates. So, I know that there have been updates. I believe the last update was in the early, maybe 2007, 2008, something like that and then it's kind of continually been modified as we went but there are definitely some things that we can update in that response plan and there's new procedures and new kind of

119addendums to the work that the school safety centers put forward. That's kind of the framework, so the speak, and I want to make them a useful tool. Like right now I hear a lot that the binder's there and we know it's there but we don't really have to use it. We don't really use it and I want it to be a tool for them and I want it to be something that they do reference or we do have, you know, throughout the year we go into that. We pick one of the response plans and go over it as a school, just kind of in a proactive, scenario based training. So that's gonna be a big focus on mine as well and then keeping that updated as we go. I know and it's identified through an

120inspection that was done last year, I believe, that we don't have a railway emergency response procedure and that was something that we should probably have so that's something we're looking at and we've already stared creating and working with different partners to create. All right and in the next portion here, again, this is priorities and focus continued but implementing an assessment program in this district and I think, by assessment program I don't just mean solely me going out and telling the schools, hey, you're doing this great. You're doing this poorly. Let's work on this. I want it to be something that's a very functional tool. Again, so creating an annual assessment or a twice a year assessment where I do go out and kind of walk through and give feedback and work with principals and leaders

121in the schools but also a self assessment that I can give them in the beginning of the school year. They can look at and say, where are we at as a school? Are we feeling good about where we're at because one thing that, we never know when emergencies are coming. We don't want to, you know, two months into school be chasing our tail because we weren't prepared. So I think the assessment program's great. You know, my grandiose plans, I would love to have maybe cross district where we go as an assessment group in different districts and kind of work together so we have a different set of eyes in our buildings because we can kind of get numb to our routine and what we're doing here and how we operate here so maybe having a

122partner district or having, I've already had conversations with law enforcement agencies. Hey, will you guys be a part of this and they were very interested in kind of working with us on that and assessing and kind of supporting us in that light as well as that school safety center. When can they come out and run an assessment with us every year and kind of see where we're at? And I want that to be, like I said, very consistent so we can track where we're at and every year we maintain and improve at the same time so we're better every time. Equitable security standards. So I know looking at the upcoming facility plan and the upcoming referendum, we want to make sure that we're putting security standards in place when it comes to the physical security

123in the buildings. Some of the things I talked about earlier with the grants, making sure that those are consistent because how the grant is structured, we may get one, we may get none, we may get awarded 10. It's a very, it's literally a random lottery system. For anyone that has high priority projects, it's what's your number and which number was drawn. So, we want to make sure we're giving everybody that kind of equal playing field. We want to give everybody the same tools to succeed. So that's gonna be a big piece of that. What do we want in our buildings? How do we want it implemented and how do we, you know, how do we want to change what we currently have? Then the last priority for me is going to be those community partnerships.

124In all my roles in the past, it's been one of the keys to success in different work is having those partnerships with emergency responders and like I said, not just law enforcement, although when it comes to safety, they're kind of the de facto go to, but also fire departments, emergency responders, like medical responders. How can we make this process smooth for our staff and smooth for our students and our families? And then, again, that partnership with the School Safety Center. How can we leverage them to make us the most safe and welcoming district we can be? So that wraps up what I had prepared for the presentation. This would open up the floor to questions for you guys. Anything you have for me? - [Don] Ms. Newmaster? - [Marge] I think our liaison got her

125hand up first. - [Don] Oh, I'm sorry. - [Woman] I would just like to say the work that is down at South on the new security system I really like with (mumbles) security system at the front door and the push for not opening doors for anybody at any other door and I now know that all of them are locked and they have signs above them which I just think is really good but I still think that, I don't know if you have control over this, but the way we do lockdown drills because we just had a lockdown drill and we just had to go into a classroom under locked door but continue to sit and do our work which I don't think is an effective way to prepare in case there is a lockdown so

126I don't know if that can be changed and I guess if you like were to poll all the students, I bet that the majority would also agree that the lock downs are ineffective. - [Kevin] I appreciate that feedback and that's good to know. I haven't gotten out to a lockdown at South campus yet. When we do lock downs, we have the two different types of lock down. The lock down with warning and the lock down with intruder and I've already had conversations about changing that verbiage because it can be very confusing unnecessarily but one of them is for when we have a threat in the building and one of them is for when we have a threat outside the building and we're trying to continue operating but be prepared in case something were to be

127happening out in the community or we might be concerned that something's gonna be brought to the building. So in that case, my guess is they were doing a lock down with warning. I prepared kind of a tip sheet for the schools that I sent out to the principals already about lock downs and I gave them kind of a suggested schedule for lock downs and most of them were gonna start with a lock down with warning, which you would continue your classwork but progressively get more difficult or challenging situations. So the next one would be a lock down with intruder drill which would include lights off, curtains shut, silent class in the corner, that kind of thing. But I definitely think that there's a verbiage piece and I've heard from principals as I've provided that schedule

128that that's something that they were really excited to see because now it's saying, oh, we should try it maybe when one group is at lunch or when someone's outside and how would we do this if we were at dismissal because it happens. You know, I've seen lock downs happen at dismissal and it can be chaos. So it needs to be practiced in all those different scenarios and obviously that building emergency response team that I'm gonna be focusing on is kind of who spear heads those drills and how are we gonna do 'em and how are we gonna conduct them and make ourselves better and more prepared? So, I appreciate that feedback and I will definitely consider that further. Thank you. - [Don] Ms. Newmaster. - [Marge] Well I'm impressed with your huge to do list

129and I like the fact that you talked about community partners and working with the other first responders and things like that and I guess I'm super interested in other types of community partners because of all the meetings that I've been going to for the last two years probably and as we look at the other part of the use of our community owned school buildings, you're focused the school day when we're locked in and made sure there's no intruders when we have our precious cargo of students in the schools and I've also been hearing at all these meetings about our other use of schools, whether it's senior citizens playing pickle ball or, you know, PTO things after school, family play nights, all the things we do to let people know that this is their building and

130we're encouraging multiple diverse use of our schools. So, one of the things that people did say about communication is as we have our hard entries during the school day and we have one entrance people are supposed to enter, that's more clear in an elementary school but I think it's hard for people to understand like big schools like North or South or maybe Central and it's not as well. This was senior citizens that said this at a meeting. It's not well marked where the handicap entry is. Like if you come into North, you may only enter on the other side, the Division Street side. I still don't think it's labeled out there that during the school day and actually even after school on Saturdays, the only door that's open. So I think communication with our community

131partners that are using the school, especially those that maybe have a difficult time getting in and out of things would be another thing to just put on your huge list of things to remember as you're taking care of all your signage and whatever. But I think this is a very good position and you've got about 1,000 things to keep track of but remember our after school day community partners and all the use there where accesses and communication is important. - [Kevin] Thank you. I appreciate that feedback. - [Marge] And I know you talked about student drop off and pick up but that's still kind of a student day thing. - [Kevin] That is definitely something I will keep on the top of the list. - [Marge] Thanks. - [Don] Mr. Chapman. - [Kim] Well first

132off, welcome. I am quite impressed by what you've had to say. I really like the ideas and where you're moving and the direction that I hear we're going so I'm very happy you're on board. In terms of one of the things that you're probably already aware of and probably already working on that's coming up rather quickly and I think this has been addressed to some extent and that is the election issue. We have some of the school buildings being used for election purposes and I know I live in the Otter area and I know that has been kind of a concern over time and I think some parents have expressed that and so if you haven't already taken a look at that, I think you're gonna want to. I mean, we're what, six weeks out

133from the next one? And so that is an area I'll just throw out there if you aren't, if it's not on your immediate radar screen. - [Kevin] Sure and we actually had Assistant Superintendent Wald and Tim and I, we did meet about this already and a lot of the stuff I created in my previous district, I was able to bring along with me and I did get some kind of starting documents as far as polling place safety. There's definitely challenges there because not all of our buildings were designed to section off for an event like that and I think through the referendum and that facility planning, hopefully we can address many of those because we don't always have the option whether or not we want to be a polling place. That's chosen and I've kind

134of walked through with, we've walked through a building scenario that was struggling with it and we do have something that we're gonna put in place and I think there's definitely more work to be done because, you know, there's only so much security provided by the polling. You know, the judges themselves and having police in the presence creates an intimidation factor so there not allowed to be there unless they're responding to an emergency. So, there's a lot of challenges and there's definitely a lot of strategizing that we need to continue to work on and hopefully we can get there. Thank you. - [Man] I live in the Sunrise Park area and I will tell you that they have a huge problem with handicap access so I'm gonna ask you to please consider that also. - [Kevin]

135Certainly. - [Don] Ms. Fahey? - [Ellen] Okay, mine goes back to McKenna's and then I also have something to add to Mr. Chapman's and that was I think I remember spending a lot of time at Sunrise explaining to kids the difference between the different type of lock downs that we have. Not every lock down is an intruder because occasionally we had medical emergencies at Sunrise where the ambulance came in. We went into lock down because of that. So you had to explain, you know, staff needed to understand that and you had to be able to explain it very clearly to the kids that there are different types of lock downs because just with the anxiety of some of the kids, they thought every lock down drill we did was most likely because an intruder was

136in the building. So just that being very clear that we do have different type of lock down drills and some we simply stay in the room because there's something going on in the hallway that we don't know about but it's not an intruder and we just continue our work. And then with the election issue, having been a teacher at Sunrise and being told we have to keep the kids away from the people coming in to vote, et cetera, which is difficult to do when only have so much space in the school but I think what we forget also is we often use the gymnasium and we're taking someone's teaching space. You know? That is a physical education teacher's, that's their teaching space and I know we've been trying to reduce that in terms of choir

137practices and things like that but I know Sunrise was always at a disadvantage, not being like Central, right next to being able to use the district auditorium but we do need to remember that, you know, if there are other places available for polling places, it might be in the interest of safety not to have a school as a polling place and you are taking someone's teaching space. - [Kevin] I couldn't agree with you more. - [Ellen] So, I know you won't have any control but I think it's something that we do need to work on in terms of being identified as a polling place because it used to be at Sunrise with middle school kids, people were complaining that a child greeted them. You know, weren't supposed to say anything to them. Well, that was

138very difficult to monitor that continually. - [Kevin] Thank you. - [Ellen] Thank you. I'm done. (laughing) Off my soap box. - [Don] Any other questions regarding this item? Mr. Mauer. - [Tim] Yeah not a question but just a follow up for you, Ms. Fahey. So I did reach out to Joe Mansky from the county and just kind of shared these concerns about Sunrise with him too so they're on his radar. He's got some options for us and I did throw, because after we met together too, looking at the area there are a couple churches nearby that might also be viable options for us to consider that I asked him as well and I haven't gotten any response back yet but and I know that he'll be in contact because as Kevin mentioned, we have six

139weeks (mumbles) Mr. Chapman mentioned we have six weeks until the next election. So I know we'll be touching base with him soon about that. I don't think anything will change for this year but, again, it's just a nice little reminder for future elections as well. - [Ellen] I know that Sunrise staff had suggested that we do have churches around us instead of being that polling place. - [Don] I think with the number of early voting that's taking place now, the volume of people who show up on election night is less so a smaller space might be more viable now than it used be. So. - [Ellen] Well and I really do think that point of taking someone's teaching space for the day also is an important, you know, if we are an education facility, that

140is important to consider. - [Don] Welcome. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your insight and we look forward to hearing more about it. - [Kevin] I appreciate your time. Thank you everybody. - [Don] Thank you. With that, we'll move into agenda item, B4, which is negotiation study session. This portion of the meeting may be closed to consider strategies for labor negotiations including negotiation strategy and developments, discussion and review of labor negotiations proposed conducted pursuant to Minnesota statute 179.A.01 to 179.A.25. With that, we will-- - [Ellen] We need a motion. - [Don] We need a motion to adjourn. - [Ellen] Yep. - [Don] Need a motion to adjourn. - [Scott] So moved. Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn. - [Don] And, Mr. Chapman seconds and we will move adjournment for, we will move adjourned

141and then we will reconvene in 10 minutes upstairs in, is it 201? 201. Thank you.