001Welcome to the Lakeville School Board meeting this 13th day of May, 2025. Would you please stand and recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I would ask the directors to introduce themselves starting with my far right, please. Uh, Dr. Amber Cameron, Brett Nicholson, Paul Carbone, Michael Bowman, Kim Baker, Carly Anderson, Brian Thompson. Very good. Um, are there any agenda additions? Okay. Hearing none, um, I move to, uh, approve the agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. Okay. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. All in favor say I. I. I. All opposed. Pass. Uh, I'm going to now turn it over to Superintendent Bowman for good news.
002Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good evening all. Thank you for coming. Uh, and those that are listening. Good news for Lakeville Area Schools has a student of the month recognition program that highlights three students each month. We're excited to announce that May's students are Mari Verani Miles Genderney Genderne and Maya Hert. It could be Ha. Is that right? We want to congratulate those students on uh being selected students of the month for May here in Lakeville Area Schools. We also have uh a staff recognition program uh staff of the month and we're excited to announce that May's staff are Beth Beckwith uh digital media specialist at Christina Huleston and Kenwood Trail and Brooke Grudley second grade teacher at John F. Kennedy Elementary. So congratulations to those staff. I also want to share uh that we
003are um recognizing our entire teacher staff as uh for teacher appreciation week. Last week, May 5th through the 9th, we celebrated our teacher appreciation week in Lakeville area schools. And we want to take a moment to thank our educators who dedicate themselves each day to inspiring, educating, and supporting our students. It's clear to me wherever I go that their passion, their commitment, and their care make a lasting impact on the lives of our students. And we want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all of our teachers. And I think I had the opportunity to do a nice video and hopefully that was wellreceived uh by our teachers. It's from the heart. Christina McDonald or Christine McDonald has been selected as the next principal at High View Elementary and Lakeville Area Schools uh
004has se has uh nominated or selected uh Christine McDonald to be the next principal uh beginning in 2526 school year pending uh action from the board this evening. Uh, Miss McDonald is currently the systems improvement and student achievement elementary curriculum coordinator at Burnsville Egan Savage School District, a role she's had since 2021. Uh, she's also had over a decade, I think, of uh, elementary experience as a principal. So, we're looking forward to her uh, coming. And, uh, a fond salute and thank you to Mr. Brett Lobin who's opened the school and was the first year principal at uh High View Elementary. Lakeville DECA students performed very well at our international career development conference. 10 of our outstanding students from Lakeville North and Lakeville South competed at this year's international career development conference, the pinnacle event
005for DECA competitors. A special congratulations to South Al South's Alice Ye. She's an 11th grader for her first place finish in marketing communications and to Bryce Edwards and Evan Hillyard. Uh Bryce is a junior and Evan is a senior for their top 20 finish. Lakeville South Lisa Smith was named national physical education teacher of the year. Lakeville South High School health physical education and developmental ad adapted physical education teacher Lisa Smith has been named the 2025 Shape America N National High School Physical Education Teacher of the Year. Earlier this month, Smith was recognized at the 2025 Shape America National Convention and Expo in Baltimore, Maryland. Congratulations to our DECA winners and congratulations to Lisa Smith. There's more. Lakeville's young mathematicians demonstrate excellence at regional math masters. 70 Lakeville area fifth grade students representing Cherry View
006Elementary, East View Elementary, High View Elementary, Oak Hills Elementary, and Orchard Lake Elementary demonstrated their impressive math skills at the regional math masters competition on April 26th in Burnsville. Congratulations to Oakill's Ethan No for his first place finish in the fact drill an individual round and to Cherry Views Una Shandurapili for her second place finish in the individual round. Two teams from Oak Hills Elementary also earned top honors in the team portion of the competition. Way to go to our mathematicians. And Lakeville North speech takes fourth overall at the state tournament. Five Panthers place in the finals. The Lakeville North High School speech team delivered a commanding performance at the 2025 speech class doubleA state tournament, securing an impressive fourth place overall team finish out of 42 talented teams across the state. Five Panthers made
007it to the individual final rounds, the peak of the competition. A special congratulations to Meredith Leo, a junior, earning the state championship title in serious interpretation of drama. Andrew Staff, senior, for a third place finish in information, informative speaking, excuse me. And Sifen Barrento, a sophomore, for a fourth place finish in serious interpretation of poetry. Harper Jensen, sophomore, for a fifth place finish in informative speaking. and Kayn Wyn, a sophomore, for a fifth place finish in serious interpretation of poetry. And there's more, Mr. Chair. Two Lakeville South students were elected to Minnesota HOSA leadership. Two Lakeville South High School 10th grade students have been elected to serve in the Minnesota HOSA future health professionals officer team for 2526 academic year. Jack Triggstead was elected president-elect and Shawn Nanhausen was selected activities coordinator. Both will represent
008Lakeville area schools in their respective statewide leadership roles. Hearty congratulations to those two as well. So, I'm going to shift gears a little bit and um ask uh our Lakeville North High School art teacher, Mr. John Cochran. Are you here? There you are. I see you. Uh so, it's my pleasure to welcome two special guests joining us today for good news. Mr. Cochran who's teach art teacher at Lakeville North High School along with uh Lakeville North senior Novella Haniman. Uh Mr. Cochran was or has been a dedicated teacher here at Lakeville since 2001. You're too young for that. Yeah, it's been a while. And he does play a vital role in inspiring and mentoring generations of high school art students. Nolla is an exceptionally talented artist whose accomplishments include receiving the Minnesota High School League
009section 1A best in show for ceramics, being featured in the Minnesota High School Minnesota State High School League state visual arts exhibit, earning a top five award of achievement for the South Suburban Conference, and receiving second place at the Minnesota State Fair. Sir, the floor is yours. Congratulations. Where are my slides? We like visuals in the art department. Well, we'll we'll get to that in a little bit. Um, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight. I'm super excited to be here. Uh, with Nolla, I want to go first. I thought about having her go first, but once she starts speaking, you won't want to hear from me at all. Uh this is a great year for us to present because we've had a ton of success with our art students uh at
010the state level, local level, state level, national level even. And so we've got some super amazing awards from our students. What I want to talk about a little bit today is our our graphic design department, the art shows that our students are involved in, and then I'm going to showcase three of our students, including Nolla. Um, one of them. So, what I want to start by talking about is our graphic design. And our graphic design, we started this about seven or eight years ago. And if I had visuals, it'd be even cooler. We'll get to that, but that's all right. Um, we started working with teams at Lakeville North to start creating a a stronger platform with our social media within our teams. And so instead of just having little comments of, "Hey, game tonight,"
011we started creating these incredible graphics. And the best part for us is that when other when other teams, other coaches would contact our coaches saying, "Hey, who's doing this?" Like, "What professionals are doing this?" It was uh an honor to know that it was done by our students. And these professional edits are all created by our students. And over the last six or seven years, seven, eight years, we've created well over a thousand designs for our student athletes, for our teams. And so the bonus of that is we're we're helping our teams and we're also showcasing our student artwork. Uh and and some of these artworks they're seen by five to 10 people and some of them are seen by thousands depending on which which team that we're working with. Um and then let's see
012here. Then we talk a little bit about our art shows. and our art shows. Uh, part of what we're trying to do is we want to we want to give our students the best opportunities possible. And how do we do that? A lot of it is through art exhibits. And by showcasing our student artwork, um, we are able to see amazing work and our students are able to build confidence and when when it's just around the school, our students, you know, it's it's nice that I give them feedback and um, applaud them, but when an outside source can comes to them and says, "Hey, great job on this work. Great job." And they earn all these awards, it's pretty incredible. Um, I want to talk about a couple of our students. Fiona Hammer, uh, is
013an incredible drawing student, and she created a piece. She Oh, here we go. Oh, this is exciting now. Oh, there we go. See, visuals help this so much more. All right, so these are some of our designs that our students have done, and they're they're incredible, and they're uh professional, very well done, and very nice work. the art exhibits. So, these are some of the art exhibits that our students have been involved in. And again, it's it's a great opportunity for our students to be involved in shows, be able to hang artwork. In fact, our senior art show is going on right now at City Hall, and we have an annual uh senior art exhibit uh for our students. All right. So, here's one of our pieces. So, this is Fiona Hamer's drawing. It's 36x
01448. It's It's huge. It presents amazingly well in person. And so this was chosen as best in show at the South Suburban Conference. It was the award of excellence. It was the out of 110 pieces, this one was chosen as the best one. And then it was also last week at the state art exhibit. This one, this is by Anukica Swanson, who's a junior, and this is a a film piece. This one isn't, this one's 8 by10. Uh, but it received this. What's cool about this, and yes, it's film. We teach film. We still teach film. I know it's archaic. I know it's old, but it's such a great experience for our students. And as luck would have it, her piece took gold medal at the Scholastic Art Awards at the state level. And then
015all gold medals go up to the national level. And her piece was chosen as a gold medal. And and what that means is now she's heading out to New York next month to receive her award at Carnegie Carnegie Hall, which is pretty amazing, right? Right. And that's all from an 8x10 print made in the dark room. So, we're super excited about our students and what they're doing. And now I get to introduce Novella. And so, Nolla is going to come up here and she's going to tell you a little bit about what she's doing. And she she's the best ceramic student I've ever had. And our our our district has done a really nice job to give her the opportunities uh to be successful. And I'll let her I'll let her talk. She she gets
016to do the next part. come on up here. And she's got a couple of projects. Again, visuals are our thing. Uh my name is Hannah, obviously, and I brought a couple pieces to just show you what I've been able to create at um all the different schools I've been at. [Music] Um, so my experience at North started my freshman year where I took ceramics 1. And um, the biggest impact that this school really had on me was just how supportive and kind all the teachers are. Um, without Cochran's help, I never would have continued doing pottery after my freshman year if he hadn't encouraged me to take independent study and continue following something that I'm sure he could see I really loved. Um, I really love North just because I had so much freedom to
017create. I mean, all of these beautiful pieces that I never would have had the chance to even begin to imagine making. Um, and I've really had a lot of chances to improve, um, all my skills. I've taken ceramics one and two uh independent study twice, PSO at Normandale where I got the chance to work with Lazar uh Rotat at at Normandale and he really kind of took my art to the next level. uh encouraging more of a fine art from just basic pieces. Really encouraged um surface work and putting emotion and feeling and all those things that you see in like museums just like making things that people really look at and say like wow and can um you know put their own special meaning to. Uh, I also got the chance to work with
018Hansen at South where I had more freedom with glazes and he really encouraged just like trying new things and like if I didn't think I could make something, just do it and try it. He's extremely supportive and I mean everything you make he just thinks looks amazing even if it's looks horrible to you. Um, and I've had a lot of, you know, art shows, as he said, that really have showed me like, wow, I not just my mom is liking what I'm making, other people like it, too. So, yeah, I've just I've really really loved having the chance to, you know, do this and build just this amazing thing that I love to do. And yeah, so pretty great. That's all I have to say. Terrific. Bella, where what's next for you with uh with
019your art? I'm going to UMD in Duth and hopefully uh getting a minor in pottery. And next summer I want to go to Aromont in Tennessee, which is a pretty amazing art school. Terrific. Good luck with that. Thank you. Terrific work. Terrific work. Thank you. Thank you folks. The board will now open up the floor uh to allow public the public to address the board about any comments or concerns they may have. Uh to participate in public comment, individuals must have registered in advance using the form provided on the website by noon on the Monday before the scheduled public comment session. Uh there will be no board response during the the session. Uh public comments are framed as public comments that are framed as complaints or concerns about a student or staff are not appropriate.
020Uh these comments should be addressed to the administration outside of the public meeting. Likewise, complaints about any school board members should be privately directed at to the board chair or superintendent Bowman. Uh there'll be no formal action taken on a topic presented during the public comment. Uh and as necessary, the administration will follow up with the appropriate personnel on any concerns that need to be individually addressed. Also, if necessary, the board will follow up during board communications at the next regular scheduled board meeting. Individual remarks are limited to three minutes, and the board will provide a signal by Director Baker uh when you hit the 302 threshold. Uh please try to keep audience noise at a minimum uh to allow everyone the opportunity to speak. And the first Lisa Aldridge. Hi, my name is Lisa
021Albridge. I am a third grade teacher at High View Elementary, a Lakeville resident, and the mom of four adult children who all attended Cherry View Elementary, Century Middle School, and Lakeville North High School. I'm asking that the school board vote to approve the operating levy renewal and add the capital levy to the November ballot. I want to take this opportunity tonight to give my perspective of the importance of the renewing of the operating levy, which funds fifth grade band, elementary art, and would maintain current high school class sizes. As a district and community, we cannot afford to cut fifth grade band and art again as we did back in 2011. My oldest child was the last fifth grade band or the last fifth grade class to have fifth grade band. My middle two did not
022have the fifth grade band experience due to budget cuts. And my youngest, who graduated from Lakeville North in 2024, was in fifth grade the year fifth grade band was reinstated. It has taken years for the middle school and high school band programs to recover from fifth grade band being cut. We finally have strong middle school and high school band programs that are thriving. To allow the possibility of cutting the fifth grade band program again would be irresponsible. The music programs in our schools are vital for a well-rounded education. They foster creativity, enhance emotional well-being, boost academic performance, increase self-confidence, and develop important social and emotional skills like teamwork and collaboration. And for many students, band is the bright spot in their day. Many graduates go on to pursue music beyond high school, whether as a
023college major or minor in order to make it their life's work or continuing to participate in music ensembles in college and beyond. Our district is surrounded by other school districts with flourishing band programs in the metro area. In order for Lakeville to continue to be an attractive and competitive school district, we need for you to vote to approve the operating levy renewal. Thank you. Next speaker is uh Hillary Morlac and Mary Casserly Smith, please. Hello, my name is Hillilary Morlock and I'm a digital media specialist at Cherry View and Orchard Lake Elementary. As we prepare for the capital levy next fall, um I'm here to share good news about how iPads are being integrated into tier one instruction at the elementary level. Recently, first and second graders used Keynote to create digital books and included
024their own little voiceovers, and this supports their fluency and expression and their confidence. These books were then published to their class Seesaw blog, which allows for a safe and authentic audience. In fifth grade, students used the numbers app to collect and analyze and graph data, which helps them build their skills in math, science, and critical thinking. These are two simple examples that show that technology isn't replacing the instruction. When used appropriately, it is enhancing the instruction. iPads help students to create, collaborate, and take ownership of their learning in developmentally appropriate and standardsbased ways. As a quick side note, um Kathy Kudson, one of our colleagues, was hoping to be here tonight. She wasn't able to attend, but I believe she sent each of you a video of more ways that technology is being integrated, and
025it's very well done. So, I hope you get a chance to watch that. Um, thank you for supporting the work of the digital media specialists as we work with staff and students to prepare them for a digitally connected future. And now, Mary. Hi there. I'm going to talk kind of fast here. Um, I'm Mary Cashley Smith. So, I am the digital media specialist at South High School. So, I'm going to give the secondary perspective on how we support tier one instruction at the high school level. So I help students build essential skills in reading, writing, critical thinking, media literacy, and smart technology use. This includes media balance, digital citizenship, online safety, cyber bullying awareness, and understanding our digital footprints. At the high school level, I focus on getting reluctant readers to read while keeping the
026book lovers engaged. In ELA classrooms, I give book talks in person or on my YouTube channel. I teach library skills and connect students with a wide range of books through our partnership with the Dakota County Library. I also support social studies classes by helping students create iMovies and podcasts that blend research with storytelling. And recently, I've been teaching AI literacy to staff at South and across the district. It's energizing to explore how AI can enhance learning in ethical and creative ways. Uh, I want to give a huge shout out to the incredible tech support we have both at my school south and at Discuit. I know Hillary would agree that we're having having a strong tech support not only makes our jobs easier, but also keeps students and staff safer. Thanks to a previous tech
027levy, every student has access to an iPad. That kind of access levels the playing field and creates more equitable learning opportunities for all. And it's only possible with your continued support. Thank you. That's really hard in a minute and a half to do all that. Thank you, Tyler Shoreborn. Tyler Shoreborn going twice. Britney Shoreborn. No, they must have come in the same car. Okay, very good. Brittany Shoreborn. No. Thank you. Okay, moving on to approval of the consent agenda. Is is there an item or are there any items that uh anybody wishes to see removed? If not, um I'd ask for a motion. like I like to pull item B and item C out, which is the policy 714 and the employment recommendations. Okay, so B and C out. Yes. Okay. Uh do we need
028a motion on that previous chair? No, you just moved to approve the consent agenda without those two items. Okay, we can have uh a move to approve the consent agenda with those two items uh deleted. So moved. Is there a second? I'll second. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Brian, do you want to have any discussion on those two? I do. Uh let's talk about policy 714 which is our uh fund balance uh policy and I want to jump to page 25 for those that might be reviewing their packet. Um it is uh section four about the minimum fund balance. So when we reviewed this last time there were some comments around what does a general fund mean or xyz. So I highlighted a couple things in the changes and so
029I wanted to make sure the board is aware of what those are. In section four, the minimum fund balance, the highlighted section, general fund, that was the word that was added. I believe director Nicholson shared that not everyone may know what fund balance we were speaking about. So that hopefully that answers that. And then section C, I'm sorry, letter C within that section, um, the highlighted section underneath letter C is the one that is to replace letter C. And so letter C said the unassigned general fund balance will maintain a minimum balance of 5% of the annual expenditure budget. Uh the proposed uh replacement of that is this verbiage. The unassigned general fund balance shall not fall below 5% of the annual general fund expenditure budget. Expenditures that will reduce the budget uh that will
030reduce the balance below this threshold may only be made with prior approval of the school board. And so what we are approving today for policy 714 are the highlights in yellow as well as the uh the paragraph yellow highlight that would replace letter C. I'd like a motion make a motion to approve. Is there a second? I'll second. Second. Okay. Any discussion? I just I wanted to just say to the policy committee, I appreciate uh the thoughtfulness around um kind of what we're striving for with the 10% um which feels kind of the safest route for us, but um that if we're kind of approaching that 7.5% mark, that that's what kind of raises the flag to investigate how we can certainly keep it keep it above five and ideally above 7.5. So, just wanted
031to thank the committee. I think it's a thoughtful conclusion. Okay, very good. Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. If not, all in favor say I. I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Okay. Moving on to the report section. Oh, I'm sorry. We still have item C. My apology. Go ahead. Uh, letter C. And so, uh, I did send an email. So, Dr. Bowman, thank you for for that update on that. I just want to make sure I I understand again as we look at the employment recommendations uh this is where the board then approves all of the recommended hires by by the school district and part of that also includes our new principal uh for high view included in that. Uh the two that I want to just call out to make sure that I understand
032is that there is a school psychologist role that we're hiring in addition to a a special education teacher. uh both of them are at the MA steps MA60 step 16 rate and so when I think about the teacher salary matrix think of it like more like a like a rectangle you got top right would be the entry level uh uh teachers and then all the way across would be those who have a master's degree with all their continuing education credits and then as they work every year or top left top left yep for those watching I was trying Yes, top left and then top right. And then for every year a teacher works, they move down one step at and their pay increases all the way down to step 16. And so these two individuals
033would be at the highest education metric that we have available as well as the highest step that is available uh which is roughly $97,000. Uh I just want to make sure I understand like the school psychologist uh and why that was in that particular step and obviously are you know why you know how many do we have in that particular step or that last category. I think from the previous conversations and meetings that we had around special education and and the limit limited resources that are available out there that may justify the the reasoning for that that highest step possible. And I want to share this because they can't these individuals can't make any more unless obviously after contract renewals. They're at the very highest possible step that that we are bringing on board. And
034so I think my question is more of like why are school psychologists leveraging this? Maybe I might have asked this question before and I apologize if I did. Why are school psychologists uh leveraging the teacher schedule? And then two, why is that person at the very highest rate? Is there is that the norm that we see in the marketplace right now? So those would be my two questions. I would say that um school psychologists are incredibly difficult to find. Um there's a shortage not only in the state of Minnesota but nationwide. Um I would say the district is is probably fortunate to be able to find one that's not contracted. um because then you see that number go up even more because then they become their own LLC and they privately contract their services and
035then we have to pay and then they can um say that their contracts a lot more strict than what we would have for our own district. Um many districts are in have been found to be in that same situation not only with school psychologists but speech pathologists um is the same thing right now. So they're either um hiring them online where they're they're providing their services digitally or they're private and they are contracting those services privately with the district which then again um gives them a little bit more leeway but then the pay is different. So um I know that uh we've lost a lot of school psychologists in this district. So I think it's important for us to try to build that back up. Um, and I like I said, I I would say
036that we're probably fortunate to even find someone at this point. And we have one or do we have two at Lakeville South? Do you do you know? Does anyone know? Curious, Brenda? Do you know? Just one. One. So, one school psychologist to support the 2,000 high school students at Lakeville South. So, it's it's not like they're providing individual services to students. I'm sure that, you know, we could we could have a more thorough discussion on the model, but a lot of the work that they do is around uh special education evaluations and determining if kids qualify for services, testing students, and then writing the reports um related to that type of work. So, so, so they're not like school psychologists? Well, a school psychologist is a ma it's it's a different than like a clinical
037psychologist in the community. So like a school psychologist is a master's level um psychologist where they're doing more assessment services in a school setting for special education like director Baker said. So that's different than our school counselors that are doing more of the career readiness and some of the yeah they work more directly with students to make sure all their classes are appropriate and some of the emotional issues too. But so that's why regardless they're always going to start at that masters level because that's where they're always going to be with that certification. Yep. Well, then I they all ask a question like do they even belong in this grid? I mean, do they need to be a separate grid? Maybe that's a separate conversation, but it's like are they teaching students? Well, I think
038certain states have different models on how they um they do school psychologists. Uh, for example, like Iowa has an area education agency and they're hired through that agency and then they provide the services to the district. In Minnesota, we've always hired our own school psychologists for our district. So, I mean, that's that's kind of above our pay grade as a school board as far as um changing the state model on how they do things, but um when when you have your own employees, then you have more control over what they're working on and and the work that they do for you and the contracted services. So, yeah. Brenda, would you like to make a comment? Yeah, they they are represented by EML uh which means that they're under that salary schedule that you uh were
039talking about earlier. So, we need to pay according to that salary schedule. Okay. So, Director Thompson, did you want further clarification or did you want to make a motion or what would you like to do? No, I I'm good. I don't I don't have any further questions. I just want to u point out that Carly and I just had a second where we I was asking her a question related to um school psychologists and it's noted that they are under the teachers contract here but if you were to hire them in a different capacity which would actually mean to look at their degree and give them something a little bit more like a different grid you'd probably be paying more. So just that thought. Okay. So we need to make a motion to pass this
040then. Yep. Okay. Motion to approve. Uh, is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Any discussion? Any further discussion? If not, all in favor say I. I. I. All opposed. Motion passes. Moving on to reports. Uh, first report is community survey results. Uh, and if, uh, Mr. Peter Leatherman is available, please. Super. It's a pleasure to be here with you this evening uh to go over the results of uh this year's community survey. Uh to review with everybody what we undertook. We spoke with 500 randomly selected residents across the community. Uh the interviews, this is hot off the presses, so it's from April 21st to May 1st. Um and that is also an important there's you know at a national level we had April 2nd happen and the economy's been the stock market has been going
041up and down. So this is post um that uh decision at the federal level. Average interview time was 12 minutes. Non-response rate was 6%. Uh projectability it's always uh 500 samples always plus or minus 4 and a.5%. uh even if so in the Lakeville school district, Dakota County or the state of Minnesota. Uh the margin of error is determined by the size of the sample, not the percent of the population. And to put up some demographics, uh first off, cell phoneon households are 64%. You're down to 9%. You're in the single digits now, but they still exist. Landline only households, and then both landline and cell phone households are 27%. uh if we look at the the demographics and once again demographics are done for two reasons. First off to validate the sample against updated
042census information but then we can look at differences between groups households with children versus households with seniors, homeowners versus renters. So the first set of bars looks at how long has the resident lived in the Lakeville school district. Uh you have a very youthful uh community. Uh 41% have been in the district for 10 years or less. Well, you have 35% that have been in the district for over 20 years. Uh the typical residents been here right about 13 years right now. For 16% are pre have preschoolers or infants in the household. 33% have a child attending the Lakeville Area School District and then 63% are empty nesters. So as you look at the results, basically four out of 10 have kids, six out of 10 don't have kids. Um and once again empty neester
043does not ascribe age. We could have a 24 year old without a child. That's an empty neester for classification. In the survey, renters were 14%. Uh the home value, I suggest uh next time we do a survey, we up it. It continues to go up. Uh the typical the the median uh home value now is uh well over 400,000 when you include the categories of over 400,000. Women outnumbered men by 4%. If we look at the age uh breakdown, 22% are 18 to 34 year olds while 35% are over the age of 55. Typical residents about 47 years old. Highly educated, 53% a majority have a college degree. That includes post-graduate degrees uh while 18% are high school graduates or less. The financially stressed versus financially comfortable has impacted districts across the state over the
044last three election cycles. It was it's the main determinant factor on success or failure of an operating or a bond referendum or a capital projects levy. You have and you have historically had a lot less financially stressed even over the course of the pandemic. The high point we had was in the first part of 2023 where we had almost 60% indicating they were financially stressed. What we found in the first quarter of 2025 is about 45%. And I've been watching, I've now run 11 school districts uh postappiling to see if there's going to be an increase in that financially stress and we're not seeing it yet. Um so you it does that bub come? Who knows what's going to happen, but even in comparison to where we are across the metro area and across the
045state, you're about 10 points lower. It's it's really a good the community is willing to talk about these sorts of issues. Um and so it's as opposed to uh many districts where it's a limiting factor right at the start. And then you can see the geographic distribution. Uh Lakeville makes up 77% of the district. Uh we cut the district uh by wards divide it north and south then Burnsville at 8% and the remaining areas at 15%. Start out with a couple open-endeds. They can tell us anything and we collapse them down into categories. First off, what do they value most about the Lakeville Area School District? Good teachers comes to the top at 23%. But if we combine a couple categories, you actually have two that go above the teachers. And that would be the
046variety of programs in broad curriculum at 28% and the good academics, high achievement, and excellent academics at 28%. Um, it's a statistical tie within the plus or minus 4 a.5%. Um, but you really do have all three. So people value in different uh uh at different lengths who's teaching, what they're teaching, and the quality of the teaching. Districts vary. I I presented two districts last night in northern Minnesota. Uh we get to the outstate very much about teachers um as opposed to get to the west metro dominated by programs and curriculum. So it does vary. Yours it's about an equal tie between those three major areas what people value. Now, if we ask what they like most, we always follow up with the most serious issue facing the district. You have the same uh at
047the top uh that every district has across the state of Minnesota. Uh 20% indicate the lack of funding. That's typically right now between 20 and 25% of residents. Then we have large class sizes at 13%. High property taxes, a little bit lower than the norm. Uh and we'll talk about property taxes specifically in a little bit. That's typically around 15 to 18%. Uh too political at nine and then a uh various things at in single digits. The other item that's noteworthy um is at the bottom the nothings. It's going to be a surprise to you, but 22% of people see no problems in the school district. Um that's about double what we're seeing right now. Um, so one and five really they're boosters of the district and they're positive throughout from the quality of education
048to the communication to a potential levy renewal. They're very supportive. It's a nice reservoir of goodwill uh with one in five in the community. We've talked about it when I've been here over the past few years is the shift and the concern coming out of the pandemic on folks on the quality of education in Minnesota. I mean, this is a Minnesota problem. Uh where you land this time is at 89% rating the district's quality of education favorably. We're now down to a norm of 78% in the excellent and good category. So, you're 10 points higher on that. Also in the excellent you're double what we're seeing uh the 23%. We're at about 11% right now. Um you don't have the shift. A lot of districts the shift has gone from excellent to good and then
049good to only fair. Um you kind of have a wall there and it's been very stable over the course of the pandemic. uh where we see a lot of districts that have been going down, yours has been very stable on the overall perception of the quality of education. Now, if they think about the quality of education compared to three years ago, and it's intentional. We want to make them think post pandemic. It's not a fair comparison to think back to 2018. It's apples and oranges in public opinion uh times. Uh you have now 43% indicating the quality of education's better. you have 5% saying it's worse. So this is the best ratio if you look at it as a ratio over the four years. Uh it's an better than 8:1 ratio now of people saying
050that even if there is a concern there's momentum that things are moving in the right direction and getting better post pandemic. Some specific school district perceptions. First off, does the district spend taxpayers money effectively and efficiently? the high over the last two years up to 78%. Norm on this right now is about 61% in the metro area. Do they trust you to do what's right for children? Absolutely. 86%. Are they satisfied with decisionmaking? 79 to 19 better than 4:1. Norm on that right now is about 2:1. Uh agreed to disagree. Does the district do a good job of involving residents in decisions? 81% better than 10 points higher than the norm and up statistically significantly from the last two years. The next question is the schools are a good investment and I would support a
051property tax increase to protect that investment. The key on this is the disagreement because as the questions posed, it doesn't talk about the use of the funding, operating levy, bond, referendum. It doesn't talk about a dollar amount. That's your core opposition and you've been very stable in your core opposition over the past two election or two years um at 23%. What we're seeing right now in 2025 is the norm is about 32%. Uh the district I was at last night had 38% in the core no at the outset. That makes it very difficult. Doesn't mean everything automatically passes. The lower the number is means there's more willingness to discuss a potential funding request. And then we added on uh to this survey uh simply because of the potential capital projects levy and the use of
052the funding safety and security. Um and 92% believes the district provides safe and secure learning environments right now for the children. job performance. Um the board is up eight points to 7 7421. Norm right now on boards across the the state is 58 to 40 on the administration up nine points 7424 better than 3:1. The norm right now is 2:1 positive to negative. And the teachers have a statistically significant increase also uh up seven points in one year uh to 91%. And that that's an impressive number right now. Teachers over the course of the last five years the ratings of teachers have gone down um because of political things, what's happened outside the district, what's happened across the country. Uh but the norm right now in teachers is about 80%. So that 91% is an
053outstanding rating. Overall assessment of financial management, that's up nine points to 82%. Norm on this right now is 52%. So on the financial management piece, you have a lot of trust with the stewardship of of uh dollars by residents. You are an anomaly in the metro area on property taxes. Only 48% say their taxes are very high or somewhat high. What we have seen over the past few years is an explosion of property tax hostility. The 48% you are the only district under 50% in the metro area and the very high and somewhat high category. To give you an example, I presented last month to a district. They did a survey last summer, had 52% say their taxes were high. This January, 70% said they were high. The only thing that changed is they opened
054their property tax statement November 15th last year. Um, and so the norm right now in the high category is 62%. Uh, the high is 77%. So you're a tax sensitive district at 48%. The data also shows us the trend we also see because if you look at their perception of school taxes, the high goes from 48 to 34. So what that tells us is if they have concerns on property taxes, it's not focused at the school district, it's the city and county. I always say back in the good old days when I started doing this in the 90s, we used to ask, who do you blame? And cities and counties got very upset with us. So we do it this way now because so we can kind of backdoor into the results. Um but it
055is more pronounced now more than it's ever been in the last decade of this real view that the concern on property taxes is not coming from the school district. That's the good news. The bad news is cities and counties really can do anything they want with taxes and and the property tax levy. The school district is the one that has to go to the voters. Is the district adequately funded? Um, nobody knows. Nobody knows in Minnesota how to answer this question. Um, they hear all sorts of things from St. Paul, from Washington DC, and then they see the reality of what school district, their local school districts are doing or the neighboring school districts are doing. You do have a majority of folks indicating that no, you're not adequately funded at 54%. 40% indicate that
056you are. It's pretty much follows the trend that we see. We added a question on college and career readiness. Uh two questions actually uh based on the potential capital projects levy renewal. First off, how important do residents think these programs are? Uh 76% think they're either essential or very important? 21% say somewhat important and only 3% say not too important. So there is a high level of importance placed on college and career readiness. Um and and really the key the shift I've seen over public opinion. It used to just be college readiness. Now folks are very interested also in the career piece for students. How do they rate the programs offered in the district? They rate them favorably. Uh it's 84% but it's a soft favorable. It's a good and so I think when you
057have that level of importance that people place on the programs when you talk about a potential renewal the use of the funding and how do you make people go from good to excellent on something that they value so highly will be a critical piece of the discussion this fall. Now a technology there's a big shift going on right now in public opinion. This has ebbed and flowed over my career on the essential versus the very important. And what we are seeing now, the essential is now down to 23%. That's half of what it was pre- pandemic. It was about 48%. It's down almost a third from where we were in 2015 when it was almost 65% saying it's absolutely essential. I don't really understand. I I've told school districts, you know, we always do internal
058polls that we share with all the education acronyms, I call them this fall. I'm going to I want to dive into this and try to get an understanding of where folks are at and the rationale for this. Um, but this is across the state of Minnesota. It's the metro area. It's outstate Minnesota. This shift and the importance on this shift is when something goes from essential to very important or very important to somewhat important. It becomes a nice to have, not a have to have in the minds of residents. And folks are very much in right now with concerns on the economy and taxes. They are very much prioritizing have to haves over nice to haves. Now, how do they rate the technology opportunities in the district? 79% rate them favorably, but you can see
059it's the majority of the favorable being in the good, the softer category versus the excellent. This is probably part of the concern is the concern about screen time. And this was specifically asked of how the not the screen time at home, the amount of screen time for children in the classroom. 60% indicate that they're either very or somewhat concerned. 15% indicate they're very concerned. And on this one, if you look at the parents, uh, the parents have less concern than non-parents. So, I think that that is tapping into this. So, the parents are actually seeing how technology is implemented in the classroom that it's just not staring at a screen. Um, this hearkens back to, I think, you know, about 20 years ago. uh we saw this downward trend on the technology essential and we
060kind of got into it and kind of realized you have a whole group of people out there that had never seen a whiteboard. The last time they were in a classroom was there was chalkboard and erasers and so districts actually did programs on technology to bring senior citizens and to show them the technology in the whiteboard and how it's used in the classroom. So I think that this is a component in it because there is a difference between a parent and a non-parent on the concern for screen time. Now even though the renewal is not a property tax increase, we still asked this question just to understand what folks predisposition was. If they heard the district was going to ask for a property tax increase, are they for all? Are they against all or are
061they persuadable? You start out plus three uh with 3% uh with 26% indicating their for all 23% against all the keys obviously the persuadable the 50%. Um and this typically right now what I'm finding in first quarter of 2025 it's about a minus4 meaning you have 4% more opposition than support at the outset. We brought up then the capital projects levy and respondents were told uh the school district uh if they asked the district residents to approve a capital projects levy for another 10 years providing about $4 million per year for technology college and career readiness programs and safety and security. Um if successful property owners would see no property tax increases as a result of this renewal. Renewals typically fall somewhere between 75 and 85% right now. Um, and you're at the high end
062of it, but part of it you're at the high end of it because think of what they value. First off, safety and security. And I we add that question earlier on because oftentimes when people say they're going to support funding, they see that they funding for a deficiency. And you can see you had 92% say it's a safe and secure uh environment. When it comes to safety and security, residents see it as an insurance policy. It's not a deficiency, but also because college and career readiness programs are involved and you saw the importance people have on those programs. So, the 84% is at the high end of a renewal. I think the numbers play out over the past uh over a decade in Minnesota, there are only two renewals that have failed. um you know
063typically they come in somewhere uh by election day somewhere between 65 and 75%. So this is positioned uh in a good place for the district to come in um and support. This is I think this would help alleviate some of the confusion on funding um is to raise the awareness and what we told folks is over the past few years Minnesota public schools schools including Lakeville area schools have faced budget cuts and funding issues due to the impact of rising cost un underfunded mandates and increasing student needs. Are you aware of these factors influencing school budget decisions and the need for local funding referendums? 56% said yes. Uh 42% would said no. Um so I think it would be important. You're never going to have 100% aware of anything. If you call an election, I
064always say upon election day, you'll have 20% of people that have no idea what we're talking about. Um, but I think that that helps push the need and need is a factor when it comes to people voting, especially in off-year elections. And then finally, a few questions on communication. First off, how informed do they feel about district decisions? It's down a little bit. It's still, you're right at the norm of 66% indicating they're either very or somewhat informed. You do have a shift that's happened. Two data points uh trend does not make you need three. Um but you have less interest uh from 24 to 25. It was 67% indicating they were very in or somewhat interested in district information. Uh it's at 58% now. Um so don't know how that trend the reason for
065it at this point in time but there is a shift in interest on uh information from the district. Uh it was June. Yeah. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. But how do the how do residents rate the district and keeping them informed in a timely manner? that's up 70 from 73 to 80%. So the timeliness um is is not an issue. It's interested uh from residents over the past year. Now how are folks getting their information? It's still dominated by district communications. Uh the district newsletter at 31% email at 19, 18% the website. Um then you have 11% local newspaper and 9% word of mouth. We you do not have the growth of the grapevine as a primary source of information like many districts do. What has happened in numerous districts as well just to the west here
066as the Chanhassen Villager and the Chaza Herald and or if I did those and the Pri Lake American um as those disappeared what happened is older gentlemen like myself were not going to go to the website the newspaper's gone what are you going to do you're going to chat with your friends and neighbors and that's where they have landed so there are many suburban school districts right now that have pulled back on print uh print communications and now the grapevine is the number one source of information in the district. Uh but having a strong communications uh component for the district uh is kind of like an insurance policy that the grape vine because grape vines can be lovely but they can also be poisonous. It really depends um on the on the varietals on it.
067Uh the traditional grapevine, your grapevine is more the traditional. It's parents and it's younger parents and that's where it typically revolves around preschool programs. It revolves around youth sports and associations, those sorts of things. So your grapevine as a primary source is contained in that. You'll see the impact of the grapevine though in two slides. How do they prefer to receive information? Uh if we just look at this print versus electronic, you have 30% indicating the district newsletter, 10% indicate local newspaper. So you have four out of 10 people say they want to hold something in their hands. Do they want to push a button on a computer, 24% say email, 18% say website, 7% say social media, so 49% prefer the the poll electronic uh communication. Um so it's an even divide. Uh but
068there's demographics. Households with kids are much more since the pandemic are much more reliant. Email became their lifeline to the school district in 20 and 21. And that has not changed now their behavior. And on the other side over 55, they want it in their hands at this point in time. And then finally, if you want go through this list and ask is this a major source, minor source, or not a source at all? Um so major source it's this is uh set the scale based on major source. So the district newsletter at 39%. With it reaches 66%. But then the website and the email that's more parents. So it's limited. This kind of goes to if you don't have a kid you're not going to go to these sources of information seeking uh the
069the the information you want. Then you can see though the word of mouth alive lush uh 17% say it's a major source but 60% indicate it's a minor source. So it it has a reach about eight four out of five people are relying and talking to other people about what's happening in school district. And then you go down the list into lower levels. You do have, it's interesting, your community social media and your district social media as major sources basically the same, but as a secondary source. Now, the community social media had does outpace the district uh social media and that's changed since the uh survey I did we did a couple years ago in communication. So I would say overall the atmospherics in the district look unusually strong. The district is in a the
070residents do not have the economic insecurity that many other school districts uh is a major concern when they're talking about uh funding requests to residents. you do not have the property tax hostility at the levels we see elsewhere. Um, and so this really will come down to support or opposition based on the funding request. And with the funding request and the use of the money for the purposes discussed, safety and security, college and career readiness, um, and the key being no property tax increase, that would be a very good position for success this fall. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Yeah, very good, Peter. That's that's all very good information. I I am curious about one spot. Um in better quality education there was like 5% thought it was worse and 5% thought it
071was unsure. So say 10% that's roughly about one out of 10 people which isn't a tremendous amount but I'm curious did you drill down into that and find out what their concerns were? We did not follow up on that because that would require I could look at the data though and and do a cross tab. So I could say those that say worse, what did they say the most serious issue was? Yeah, it'd be interesting. And so yeah, I can absolutely do that for you. I mean, is it the large is it large class sizes? Is it lack of funding? What is it? So that that could probably provide some clarity uh on where the the the worse or the unsure is coming from at this point. Very good. Thank you. Any any other questions
072from board members? Uh Carly, thank you again for this. I love this survey. Um, you know, I I am not too concerned about kind of putting our capital levy out to the community this fall for the reasons you mentioned. Um, one of the slides that I'm coming back to is this tax increase predisposition in terms of the against and for and persuadable. Um, does that look similar to years past? Um, I feel like it does. It's a little bit. I I believe you were at an even margin last year. I'd have to double check it. It's actually gone up a little bit with more people saying they support uh a property tax increase at this point. Yeah, I'm just thinking about the persuadable category is so huge and we've had two consecutive years of not
073fully funded levies um or not fully supported levies. And so I think that's just something we have to think about as a board and and district admin is just how do we and it would be interesting to know kind of who falls in which category there. Is it more of our um parents who are in the for all uh you know in in terms of being willing to invest in the school district, but how do we kind of really move those persuadables in the direction that we need to pass levies consistently when people are raising the fact that school funding is the biggest issue. Right. Correct. I I mean and that's where the tension lies and with many school districts you know last year 41% were successful the lowest level since Jesse Ventura was governor
074in the state of Minnesota and most of those and I I would include yours in the mix you had the presidential I I mean that was not ideal to start with um but it really was a referendum on people's the economic insec security. Um, and then what the cities and counties were doing. You would have, you know, there were many districts that were going to the ballot in November and then their city or county was coming out in September with the preliminary tax increase of 10%. And people are going, "Okay, well, this is so my taxes are going to go up here and now you want me to increase it here." It's that tension that happens when you're the only one that has to go to the voter for the approval and the cities and
075counties. The timing, it just puts the spotlight on people uh for folks on on that tension. I mean, it really came to bear in Rochester last year um with with that operating levy. Um and so it's all of those factors come into play. It it it comes down to the cost benefit and what's the cost is and do they see the benefit to override their concern because what people consistently tell us in the statewide I just I I did a a breakout session at MASA in March and you ask folks if you had a $100 property tax increase do you want it to go to the school district the city the county the state or the federal? Well the state and federal people just laugh and say no. Um, it's overwhelmingly, it's a majority of
076people saying, "I want it to go to the school district." The problem is by the time you get there in November, the $100 has been taken up by the cities and counties. Um, and it really is the issue that's kind of come to play over the last two years as you see this this property tax um, explosion as a concern. I mean, it hearkens back to '95, 96, 97. Um, and what then all of a sudden Minnesota had the taxpayers league and they have a coalition in the legislature. I mean, it's it's at that level right now. Well, I also feel like there's been a narrative um and I hope kind of given these results with um how numbers are moving in in terms of approval of the board and the teachers and the administration.
077I just I feel like there has been in the political atmosphere an anti-public education kind of rhetoric that is not helpful to us passing levies in terms of you know so I don't think any of that was helpful either with passing levies last fall I don't disagree y okay any other question um thank you for bringing up those last points I just wanted to for the board and um the district and get your opinions on this too related to the county um uh proposals for taxes. is I'm I serve on a Dakota County um committee and while Dakota County I believe it has like the lowest tax rate in the state of any counties which is um great um I believe the board is that the county board is considering a pretty hefty increase this
078year and um uh because they haven't increased taxes in a number of years they've kept it very steady so it might almost be I can't I was just at this meeting like a month ago and it's not approved yet but I want to say it's like approaching a double double digit um proposal. So, I think that's just something for our board to to know and um we could have conversations with our county commissioners about that to learn more. I I I know many superintendent and board members in school districts all over the state of Minnesota are going to the cities and counties this year and saying, "For one year, please." I I mean, you we failed in 23, we failed in 24. We can't afford to fail. I mean, some districts are facing statutory operating
079debt at this point and to try to work with the cities and counties on this issue. Very good. Anything else for uh Mr. Leatherman? If not, thank you, sir. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Very good. Thanks. Human Resources Department report. You all look really excited. Good evening, Vice Chair Carbone, Superintendent Bowman, and members of the school board. You have before you this evening an overview of the human resources department. And I have with me tonight some members of my team. Next to me is Jessica Johnson. She is our HR coordinator. And at the table over here, I have Sarah Schaefer and Kate Eisenthal. They are HR specialists. So, thank you to my team members who joined me tonight. And give you that. Thank you. All right. So, this is an introduction to our team.
080Our team currently consists of an HR coordinator, a human resources, information systems, and data manager. We have four specialists and one associate. We are currently in the process of restructuring our department to include an assistant director of human resources and an HRIS data specialist, thus eliminating the coordinator and HRIS data manager positions to be more efficient um and provide some needed support in in some areas where we're lacking right now. The human resources department plays a vital role in managing the full employee life cycle, including onboarding, performance management, and employee relations. It ensures that the district staff are supported, compliant with regulations, and aligned with the district's mission and values. Some of our main areas of responsibility include benefits, compliance, labor relations, and employee wellness. The efforts of the HR department create help to create
081a positive efficient work environment that enables educators and staff to focus on supporting students. The human resources department oversees over 2,300 full and part-time employees in the district within 12 employee within 12 employee groups offering services such as staffing, recruitment, retention, and retention of quality employees. Employee and labor relations, training and development, human resources, records management, personnel transactions and benefits, job classification, compensation, time off and leave of absence administration, including FMLA and HR policy and procedure development. Um, as you can see from this slide, we currently have five organized groups. So that means these are uh groups that are represented by a union. Uh these include Lakeville uh education association which represents our teachers, our LEAF uh group which represents our uh pair professionals um our office managers and some other classifications. They are also
082represented by uh education Minnesota. And then we have Lakeville Association of School Administrators which represent our principles and deans. And then we have our custodial and maintenance group which is represented by SEIU uh local 284 and then education Minnesota non non-licicensed instructors. Uh beyond that we have two nonrepresented bargaining groups. That means they are organized but they aren't represented by a union and those include our student nutrition employees and our small wonders instructors. And then we have five independent groups that are not organized and are not represented by a union. That would include our non-affiliated staff, our executive cabinet, community education, our casual employees such as coaches and event workers, and of course our school board. Perfect. Um, in 2324, HR processed um a lot of things. Um so new hires we processed over 400.
083So that is um teachers, paras, um things like that, casual employees, event workers. Um we run background checks on volunteers. Change of statuses can range from a lot of things. A person changing from positions, locations, adding a stipen, removing a stipend, resignation, retirements, um unemployment claims. We saw a huge increase with in May of 23 with changes allowing um employees to submit unemployment for summer breaks, license permissions, student teacher placements. Schedule C is your coaches and advisors. Schedule D is stipens in the EML contract and then leaves of absences. So anything from FMLA or just leaves within the bargaining unit. Can you share a little bit more about that? the schedule C 800. That seems like a lot. We do we have that many sports or like what? Yeah. So that also includes if we
084hire somebody um and they get paid through the booster clubs too and all the volunteers too. So we run background checks on all the volunteers too as well for sports. Sports activities advisors. Absolutely. And what is what is um it is department share leadership stipens in the EML contract. Kate, do you want to explain? I knew I'd get a chance to talk. Um, schedule D is leadership stipens in the EML contract and it can be um a variety of things. department chairs at the high school, team leaders at the middle school, lead specialists at the elementary, um our building equity liaison, K12, our social emotional learning representatives, K12, we have shared leadership team members, K12, nationally certified teachers get stipens through schedule D, um TTE, district leadership, travel stipen as part of schedule D. Lots
085going on. Yeah. So above and beyond standard. Yes. Correct. Let's see here. All right. The goal of ISD 194 benefits programs is to maintain robust benefit offerings to attract and retain quality staff. We are proud to offer very competitive and cost-effective benefits for our eligible staff. The district health plan provides many value added programs to help both the health plan and staff members find the most cost-effective care available in addition to the regular health plan network. As the district is self-insured, these programs help keep premiums lower for both employees and the employer and are an important component of the total compensation package. In addition to offering a robust benefits package, there is no eligibility waiting period to participate in district insurance plans and these programs help assist in recruiting and retaining quality employees. Perfect. So
086optimizing u processes and designing effective documentation is essential to improving efficiency um compliance and employee satisfication. Um our overreaching goal is to streamline and standardize our processes to improve our efficiency, ensure consistency and maintain compliance. Um we over the last 18 months have created over um 100 standard operating procedures to support department functions. Um they include uh they include tasks for our HR team, our employees and managers on how to complete things. Um, we are also working with the communications team on how to um create a how-to website to post our standard operating procedures for employees to be able to easily access them to as well. Um, this March, the HR team worked with multiple departments to as well to create a strategic and collaborative new hire onboarding process. The outcome goals of the process
087were to create a sense of belonging, commitment, and excellence. um how we help employees um in their role value and over um value the overall mission, vision and values of Lake Verary schools and to provide the tools um for them to be successful. And then HRS enhancing our workflows. So we currently use frontline recruiting and hiring. By June of this year, we will implement a new requisition process. So transitioning away from Google forms and utilizing the system to its full capacity. All right. Enhance recruiting efforts. Um we're pretty proud of this one. Our goal for enhancing efforts is to position the district as the employer of choice by communicating our values, culture, and career opportunities and impact on student success. For employer branding, we have en enhanced our career websites. Um, we added more robust
088things to our job postings for transparency, um, including pay, benefits, and about Lakeville area schools. Um, recruitment and marketing. We're working with communications department as well as collaborating. We're hiring sections in staff and family newsletters. In addition, we are continuing our collaboration with communications department on creating staff testimonials and marketing videos um hopefully be coming next school year. Networking and referrals. Um our student teaching placements, we've created a more robust program for that. Um we actually hired four out of the 40 that we had student teaching last year, which is pretty great. um career fairs. We're engaging more in career fairs um to be that employer of choice for us. So, we've had um HR specialists and administrators go to our career fairs this year. Absolutely. So, um, one of the things that I've been
089seeing a lot of districts around the state do to try to help recruit that special education staff because those are the ones we're kind of seeing the shortage with right now is, um, like a PAR apprenticeship program where they um, there's like a grant assoc associated with that and then we, you know, hire some PARs within the district that um, are part of that apprenticeship program and they learn alongside like our special education teachers. So, it's kind of like we're growing our own. Is that something the district has looked into? Um, we um are have not looked at that currently, but it is on our to-do list. Okay, thanks. Any other questions? And that is our last slide. I know Brian has questions. Very good. Brian and Brian, go right ahead. Lead us off. Fantastic.
090Hey. Um, so a couple slides earlier you were showing um how many of our staff are in our benefits and I think I read 1 1300 FTEES and,00 staff that are taking advantage of the benefit offering. So it sounds like we've got a pretty good deal. I mean not a good deal but like we've got employees participating in our program which is about 85% which sounds awesome. A couple months ago, I think our insurance person came in and said, "Hey, there's a 5% increase." Uh, but we generally split that. So, two and a half goes to the the employee and and then and the district pays 2 and a half%. Can you walk me through like while we want uh our we want Lakeville Area Schools to be the employer of choice in in this
091area, uh how are benefits like can you walk me through what what a person like a single person might have to pay or what are their coverages or what do they get out of this kind of like why what are the benefits are they getting that makes it so favorable uh for 85% of our people that say hey I want to participate in this um we do offer um healthiest within in our um benefits. So if you're employed and have benefits, healthy issues, the virtual on demand um it costs nothing to the employees. And we also auto um added Solar Health. So there are providers like um TCO if you go there and have surgery, it's no cost to you. And then we have the high deductible plan that um costs the employees 0 out
092of their paycheck too as well. So we got a high deductible plan where it costs zero dollars for them. And so now that's when they see a doctor. Then are then are the premiums I'm going to say comparable to others? So uh to other districts so that it um or you know you know what I mean? Comparing premiums among different school districts is like comparing apples and oranges. Um there plan makeups are different. Um deductibles, co-pays are different. It's really really difficult to make a really good comparison among other school districts when it comes to health benefits. I have spent hours upon hours trying to do that. Um especially during the negotiation cycle. It it is just they are so different. It's really hard to compare among other school districts. But the but the benefit
093offering that we have that makes us attractive is that when you see a doctor there's no cost out of pocket or or close to it or something like that if you use the solar day health if you use that program. Got it. Got it. But the benefit package is something that we think is a a huge value ad and that's why it attracts a lot of good teachers to come to our to our district. Our our coverage is very good. Um we have three plans that people can choose from. one being of course that high deductible with no premium cost. Um and then there's a midlevel I think the deductible is 500 and then you have a plan that's just a co-ay plan. There is no deductible. Um it costs more for the employee but
094uh it's very very good coverage. You don't see that coverage in the private sector much anymore at all. Got it. Thank you. It looks like you're doing a lot of promotion and and recruiting for positions. I'm curious for a teaching spot on average, how many applications do you get for a teaching spot? And I know that varies by subject and everything, but just I'm curious. I do not have that information with me. Kate, is there It really is. It really is going to depend on, you know, we're going to get more in your elementary level than you are in your special ed or in your high school specialty classes like math and science. Um, as far as an average number of applicants, I I do you have any idea? We we don't really have analytics
095on that yet. Um, but as part of our uh HRIS data uh that we are improving on, we hope to have more information on that for next school year as we're implementing that at the start of next school year through Front Line. Terrific. Thank you. Carly, did you have your hand up? Oh, okay. Just one question. Yeah, go ahead. You said that you were moving away from Front Line. No, no, no. Okay. Okay. I thought that's better. Better utilizing it. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions for HR? If not, thank you folks. Thank you so much. Next is the business report. Vice Chair Kabone, um members of the school board, Superintendent Bowman. Yes. Tonight we're bringing bring to you the um the facilities plant and planning or FPP um department and it's interesting that this week
096believe it or not is world facilities week. So we feel very fortunate to come to you today. Um I'm going to just introduce our crew. Much better. Bill, you are on the clock. We will try to move very quickly. Um, I'm going ask everyone just to raise their hand quick, but uh, our our um, facilities manager is Bill Markort. Then we have uh, Mike Gallagher. He's our um, our uh, coordinator or our our project coordinator. And then Melissa Gallagher, she runs the custodial team. Um, very busy lady. Um, Damian Nelson, he's our safety and security piece. Um Tiffany um Steer, she is our accountant. She keeps us straight, makes sure we stay on budget, and we're not spending anything that we're not supposed to be spending money. Now, who else did I miss? Oh, Jay.
097Jade is our um low voltage guru. He keeps us keeps all those uh projects going and he makes sure that our our um security, our our doors are working and so forth. Yes. I think we have who did Heidi? Oh, Heidi. I didn't even see you, right? Heidi is our operations manager. So, when it comes to energy, she's our person. And then we have a couple others that are here. Liz is here. She's she helps work with Melissa and Shelby. Oh, she is here. I'm sorry. You're Shelby is our admin assistant. So, very very great crew that I work with. Really appreciate all of them very, very, very much. So I'm going to call up Bill to take the next uh Good evening everybody. So our FPP team and purpose and goal is uh is
098something that uh that we strive for, you know, for these schools for every day. So our our facilities and plan planning team cares for the well-being of our district buildings and grounds. We believe that students can learn, grow, and excel to their highest potential in safe, healthy, clean, and well-maintained uh facility. So, we can click this on. So, this here is a part of our our ring that we have the the different parts of our our plant manage and facilities. So, energy management, that's first up on the top. We focus on monitoring and reducing energy consumptions and costs. Custodial handles cleaning and sanitation of our facilities. Our project coordination and management. We manage construction, renovation and major facility projects. Our maintenance, we ensure building systems and assets are functioning properly. Long range planning, strategic visioning
099for future facility needs. Health and safety ensures safe working and living environments. Our grounds, this is a real important one, maintains our outdoor spaces, landscaping and our sports fields. Uh administrative coordination and support provide administrative assistance across all facilities functions. Facilities and project accounting tracks financial aspects of facilities operations and projects and our operations is day-to-day functions of facility systems and I'm calling up Melissa. Hello all. I am in charge of the custodial unit along with the grounds department. We have 84 custodial staff that clean 2.17 million square feet a night. Um we normally sometimes run short staff, but all of that gets cleaned daily. Um the chiefs do anything from maintaining equipment to cleaning up puke and other incidences that happen during the day. Um but then we have our nighttime people that come
100in and do the general cleanup after the day. grounds. I have eight total staff on grounds if they're not going into a building to help me there, but they handle 493 acres districtwide. So, that's among our 15 buildings along with a couple that are leased. Um, they do anything from snow removal to mowing to cleaning up trees to laying mulch um to picking weeds. So they handle a lot of things districtwide to make our grounds look presentable when you or the public come to our facilities. We also have our maintenance crew. So this one is very important, right? We got to keep everything going. We got eight full-time members um that that do this. We conduct a routine emergency deferred maintenance and uh all the and all the bu buildings in the district. This is
101another important one the IQ ticketing system for tracking our work orders and reporting progress. So through the district you know people all the teachers everybody can put in the work ticket then we can track it. We can get the right people on the job and then we can everybody can see when it's finished. And uh also we do a lot of preventative maintenance on our STEM and our HVAC and kitchen uh equipment. You know, this is a very important you know to keep the kids going in the STEM program because that's a very you know being a maintenance guy having you know the STEM program active that's really great. Um you know keeping the pools going you know all the doors and locks all that. Then the next one with on call rotation. This again
102is our program is we have a 24 you know 365 7 days a week. We're always you know on call you know so we're uh we're always keeping all the facilities going and then after hours is really a lot busier than even the school day you know because we have all the community programs and sporting events. So that's our maintenance staff. Hey, is your incident IQ the same as the support ticketing system that the tech team uses so that as a staff it's just one system. Perfect. Thank you. And everybody's involved and then we can see in all the departments. Great. Y quick question for you. Yes. Um so kind of looking through like your your normal work management process. Um you know you identify work either comes in through a ticket whatnot. Do you
103ever go through planning process, scheduling process? How does that work for you guys? like how how does it so when all the different people you know put in for it, right? So then we have a couple administrators that can see that and put the ticket to the right person. So um Melissa and Heidi, they run that part. So they'll see it and then they'll get it to the right department. So they route it to the department. Then how about like parts, materials, things like that? Like how does that get tied into the whole structure? Like how do you guys as in to get the parts ordered to get it fixed? You mean potentially or do you have it in stock? So once that goes through and that person will get it and then we'll they'll
104look at the problem and see what it is and then we'll get back through our uh PO system and they'll send it either to me or to Melissa. Okay. And then once you have it in stock then you issue the ticket or do you reissue the ticket? How does that work? Like we and keep it up to date, right? We'll say in progress or completed or you know waiting on waiting on you know parts or whatever like that. Okay. Thanks. You're welcome. Okay. So, another function of facilities is energy management. Um, energy costs are usually the second highest cost category for schools. Um, so we're always looking for ways to reduce costs. So, I just want to give you a few examples. Um the first one is managing energy rebates. So we work with our
105electric and gas providers to maximize the amount of rebates that we receive each year. So for example, we might do a boiler tuneup. That would be an example of something we could rebate. Or maybe there's a new freezer or cooler for the kitchen. That would be a potential rebate for us as well. Energy audits. Um we always participate in those. Um and it's helpful to reduce energy costs and also to be more efficient. curtailment activities or necessary power shutdowns are also part of our key strategies to um to be more efficient and solar arrays. Um so I just wanted to give you a little background in case you didn't know. So back in 2017, a group of fifth graders at Lake Marian Elementary researched solar energy in their discovery class and they had an idea
106to add solar panels to the school. they presented it to the board um and the administration and they approved it. Um so in 2021, Lakeville area schools launched our first solar project at Lake Marian Elementary. So pretty cool from a from an idea from students. So we did go ahead. I was going to I know that's been increasing in terms of number of schools. So just wondering what the plan is for that longer. Yeah. So, um, currently we've continued to add more solar arrays to a total of 11 schools so far. Um, the newest schools we've added back in winter 2024. So, those would be East View, Orchard Lake, Oak Hills, Cherry View, and High View Elementary. So, on on that, we do have live solar monitoring on our website. So, all public um anybody
107can go ahead and take a look. So I wanted to pull up today which is a great sunny beautiful day. So we have very good solar input here. Um so this is Lake Marian Elementary today or excuse me energy in the past seven days. Um if you give it a minute it'll show you energy for the past day. So it's kind of a cool way for students as well as anybody within the public to take a look and see at those solar arrays what they're doing. So all the um current arrays we have are on this live website. Can I ask a question about that about uh what percent of our energy comes from the panels or is that is that not a fair question at the moment? Would you know off hand? Right off
108hand, I don't know. Like we're not selling energy back yet. We're we're using what we produce. Yes. Okay. And then some. Correct. Okay. Yep. Correct. Yep. We're not making um I do have some slides for you so you can take a look at the next ones. Um next slide, please. Oh, me. Oh, well, I'm not doing very well right now. Here we go. Okay. Um, so just to give you an idea, so this is six schools um with solar arrays that started back in December 2021. So, Lake Marian, JFK, Maguire, North Sentry, and KTMS. So, the other six are the solar arrays I just talked about that were put in in winter 2024. So we don't have enough data to provide for that but hopefully in the future we'll have some good data for you.
109So just looking at this so the first column is Lake Marian um it's just showing how much uh maximum power it can produce and then below that is showing the utility bill reduction from solar. So this is how you know how have these solar arrays impacted our utility bills. So it was projected that Lake Marian would be 20%. when actual it's 49% right now. So pretty good. So total savings of 141,27488. And then I just want to give you an idea cumulative savings. So for all those different solar arrays currently it's 418,26917 for a cumulative savings. Are those lease payments like yearly or is that the total cost for like for the all the solar panels? Would that be from initial start? These are cost to date on these particular panels and we could get
110you some specific information on each one separately, but that's what that's what we paid out so far. Got it. Because eventually the lease payments will end, right? And then we should be able to retain full savings. And I think it's also important to note that the last five we put on, we actually got a grant from the Department of Commerce for each building of over $102,000 to help the original cost. So that was a really big boost for us last year. And so if I calculate the numbers, I mean just if we're projected a 20% savings for like Marian 186,000. If I just times that by eight, the cost to run that school is about a million dollars roughly. Is that is that right? Remember it's a fivey year period in a five. It's 25
111now. It started in 21, right? Yeah. It's cumulative. So yeah, from when it started. So how much does it cost then to fund a building? I mean to the energy cost for one elementary ballpark. Do we know or just curious? I think an elementary school for a year in the end of year's time is around $50,000 for each of the elementary. And of course it goes up considerably for the and usually we look at these solar arrays when we're um switching on roof or updating things. So for future schools that's potentially what we would be looking at for future ones. So hopefully um you know next year at this time we'll have all 11 so we'll kind of be able to see how all of them are um are working. Any other questions? Thank you.
112We should thank those fifth graders again, right? Yes. They get a bonus check, you know? Go right ahead, sir. All right. Thank you. Good evening, board members. Superintendent Bowman. Uh, I I just wanted to start by saying uh part of the survey results, I saw a 94% favorability on safety and security in our schools. That that resonates with me. That's that's me in my tunnel vision at least for what I do for the district. Uh but that being said, uh what I'm here to talk to you about tonight is really the environmental health and safety. And safety we know encompasses a really big meaning to a lot of people. So we've got psychological safety, we got, you know, mental safety, just all the things that contribute to that environment where our kids can thrive and
113our staff feel safe and can do that effectively. Um but in this case this is the environmental health and safety which has very spe specific parameters both in how budgets can be used and what we can spend it on. So really I'm going to talk to you about two components. One of which is the kind of governing agencies that define those requirements for us. And then lastly the the safety implementation really that guest service side. That's the granular approach of things we identify that are surfaced and discovered that aren't checklist items that agencies tell us you have to do this, you have to do this, and you have to do this. So, we'll jump in and you've probably heard of most of these. I'm not going to go into great detail, but these are really
114the guiding agencies that give us that sort of road map of things we are expected to do, whether it's Minnesota state statute to federal agencies. First foremost is OSHA. I'm sure everyone's at least familiar with the term, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration uh is a federal agency, but also any state that elects to go above and beyond will run their own state run OSHA with a baseline minimum of what the federal requirements are, which Minnesota does do. So, that means we have some other requirements and regulations that we're expected to do based on Minnesota's rules. Uh but occupational safety uh you know a lot of people think OSHA it's it's really the bigger force of everything but ultimately that's the workers safety. OSHA does not regulate athletics. It doesn't regulate students um or
115any of those things within that capacity. It's based on our workers, the tasks they perform and the potential risks that they're exposed to in the jobs that they do. Minnesota Department of Education. What's important to note about MDE is that without them, we wouldn't have the really the definition of what our funding codes are and what we're capable of doing above and beyond what OSHA allows us to do because what we do know is these safety risks for accident injury and those things go well beyond just our workers. We've got our students, we've got visitors and community that are in the buildings and with MDE, we have those other parameters that we can now address funding for those other things we know exist. Probably one of the most notable things would be like playgrounds. Kids
116are on them all year. They're jumping off everything and doing what they do on playgrounds. Um, and that's just one example of it. Department of Public Safety, Fire Division in particular. Now, when you think about that, obviously, you know, we have fire systems in all of our buildings, but uh they make sure they're really focusing on occupancy. It's how we use the spaces, how many people can fit in the spaces, and then any associated risks that do present themselves related to fire and the availability and ease ability to get out of our spaces safely. Minnesota Department of Health, uh, they regulate a lot of things within our nutrition department, but specifically where you'd see them show up are some of the things with health risks like you radidon, asbestous, some of those other things. So,
117they play a role with the EPA. Uh but you would see their presence really what we would have felt in most recent years was uh you know going through the pandemic all the requirements we were changing on the fly and determining what needed to happen based off of the requirements that they were sending to schools of how to manage monitor and provide effective uh support systems and equipment. pollution control agency is really our boilers and potential emissions that we have with the uses of all the mechanical systems that produce some of that uh those toxins. Uh Dakota County Environmental Resources manages and governs our waste. Particularly in my field, it's what we're doing with hazardous wastes. And you'd see things ranging from, you know, science, chemicals, and uh wash off to some of the things
118that, you know, cleaning resources and things with our custodial teams that they use to manage our clean buildings. Department of Labor and Industry is ultimately like elevators and mechanical systems. Met Council on Water Pollution, that's just basically water discharge from the buildings, uh sewer contamination, some of those things that we could potentially see. City of Lakeville has a hand in how we use some of the spaces as well. They also have a fire division that uh is not the authority having juris jurisdiction but um they have oversight to a certain degree with us with law enforcement specifically fire. Uh so the really when you look at the the next phase of this that I was going to talk about and this is the implementation and the guest service aspect of it is we know we
119have all these guiding agencies that are telling us things that we need to do and must be done but the other part of it is we don't sit around and just wait within those parameters to see if anything bad is going to happen. So the proactive and responsive things are what we identify when we're out in the buildings. And when you look at all the things that further the ability for staff to have what they need and understand what they need to be doing, whether it is compliance and regulatory or just things of how they instruct and use equipment uh is training. Uh obviously that's a big one. One example would be those uh roles that are exposed to you know bloodborne pathogens. So how they manage that if it's a requirement for their job
120safety equipment a good example of STEM inspection resolution. We get inspections from a lot of these guiding agencies uh based on deficiencies that they might see and making sure that we're compliant. And in doing that, we have to follow up and make sure that we're discovering that for all buildings. Collaborative partnership. I do see Carrie back over here. Uh, one example, we spent some time when her staff come to her and say, "Hey, we've got some questions on operating procedure or potential risks that they have. We'll spend time, we've spent time together recently and looked at some of those risks and um identified what support systems we need to do, what supplies they might need or if it's actually a requirement. systems and reports. Um, incident IQ, obviously we've talked about that, and that's just
121the management and monitoring of the ability for people to get us information so we can explore and determine if there are other risks we don't know about or things they're experiencing. Sidewalks and observations, the facilities teams are in the schools every day, all day. So, the idea that we're not looking for some of these things is doesn't fall short on us. Obviously, we're spending time in there and when we're in there, we're tracking and monitoring the expectations that we have based on all these things. Uh equipment maintenance and monitoring. Uh obviously, you got maintenance teams that also support whether it's mechanical systems and equipment that we have or it's the STEM equipment that creates some risk because of its use. Uh sharing findings within work centers, that's just if we have discovery on something, we
122want to move it around to all schools. It's not just particular potentially to one group or another. We want to make sure that we're sharing and spreading that support. Uh responsive. You know, when we look at the proactive piece versus responsive, there are times where things just pop up. We don't, you know, we don't know to look for them. We don't know that they're potential problem. And that's really those unforeseen issues. We get requests or concerns from both staff and parents. They'll reach out indicating that they've experienced something or something happened and it moves us into that phase of, you know, evaluating, investigating, and looking into it. I talked a little bit about incident IQ. And lastly, when we do have incidents throughout the school district, they are evaluated, investigated. We work with our insurance
123companies to make sure what that liability risk might be. So, they have support making determinations on if there's a financial impact to us, if they have to pay out for anything. I'm not going to go through all these, but these were just some components for you guys when you got the packets to look over and and understand. When you look at the environmental health and safety, there's a lot of that a lot that happens in the background that you may not see a lot about, but these were just some of the things to give you guys some perspective of what you know that focus looks like kind of at high level. And you'd see things in here that do resonate with people because they gain a lot of attention and have in the last few
124years. Lead and water, mold, radon, and asbestous things that we know um gain attention. But, uh you're welcome to look through those obviously. And if you guys don't have any questions, um, that's my role. I just uh used some photos here to tell you guys a little bit about projects tonight. And uh, this is our JFK building. Matter of fact, I'll start with Oakills. Over the last three years, we've done quite a bit of mechanical uh repairs, heating and air conditioning and uh roofing to that building and then uh moved on to JFK as well. Last year, we wrapped up most of the big projects at JFK, replacing all the duck work inside. And um on the left side, you can see the solar on the new edition, but you can see the old roof
125in this photo on the uh right hand side. And um matter of fact, well, let's just let's see. I Which takes me to the next one. Oh, here we go. Thank you. All right. So, this is after we redid the roof. So, you can see the new rubber on the Keep going, Mike. You can see the new rubber on the roof, but also um as part of that project, the siding on the uh pen houses ties in as well. So, if you remember two years ago, this would have had a a faded harvest yellow siding on it with a trim of like a faded McDonald's orange. So, putting the new gray and silver siding on it to match the new addition looks fantastic. And then, uh, these silver pipes that you can see in the
126photos are what we use as part of the new cooling system at that building to pump cool air, uh, from a chiller that's outdoors through the penthouse buildings to help uh, cool the building off. Um, this one is at Kenwood uh Trail Middle School and we've just really started last year on this project which will turn out to be about a three-year project. The about half the air handlers um will be replaced this summer. But a year ago, we pulled out the fuel tank, which you can see on the back of this truck, and it was in a space uh which would be in the next photo, sort of out where that uh generator is that's been there for years. The tank was buried in front of that. And this is all back behind uh
127the Kenwood Trail building, back by the loading dock. And then part of the chiller, the pipes that I showed you at JFK, this is what a chiller looks like on the right picture right hand side. That's a new chiller that we've placed there. Uh that then this summer will uh move toward um replacing the air handler so that we can install uh air conditioning. Matter of fact, in that cafeteria or I mean that gym um will now have air conditioning and and never has at North High School um they installed these new railings at the stadium. And I know I saw some great emails to the safety department about families or uh uh older adults that are able to now um use these railings to come to games. that wasn't an option previously. Uh also
128with this project on the back side of the stadium here, we cut out all the uh cracked and broken block. Uh filled in all the holes. Um there were several holes made from differentiz banners being put up over the years. So, those were all filled and then designed a thing so that we can have the same size banners be reinstalled uh over the years into a into a wood foundation that's then fastened to the building and then had the uh that all repainted. There was a couple storage containers back there. One was bright red, one was bright yellow. We patched the whole thing, painted the whole thing gray to match. So, now from the road it doesn't look quite so crazy. redid the uh concession stand roof uh siding and um and uh that looked
129pretty cool too. I saw it on first game saw it on uh on Facebook photo somebody's kid catching the ball or whatever and the and the new building lit up in the background. High View Elementary School we finished up uh which would be a year ago from now and this photo would be almost two years ago when we had the gym is the largest building that or part of the building that you can see that's built there now and it's just the steel structure for where the classrooms are built. And there's the finished product of high of high view, both the north and the south uh sides of that building. And um it's beautiful. So then for 26 projects that we'll be taking on is Cherry View Elementary School. We'll have uh interior replacement of
130flooring um tile and uh case work at the Kenwood Trail building was kind of where I was talking about that chiller. This next year we'll be or this this summer and the following summer we'll be replacing about half the air handlers each summer and tying in that that new chiller system to cool the buildings. Uh which is more efficient than the way they were previously cooled with uh u an air conditioning system that was massive but sort of the idea the same one that would be on your house but the size of a semi-trail. Uh this was uses cool water or cold water instead of pushing forced air. At the North High School, we're working on interior surfaces half uh in the academic for about the last three years. We started on the basement and
131just kind of been working our way up uh with flooring and tile and bathroom and bathroom fixtures and um uh dividers or partitions in the bathrooms. Lake View Elementary School. this year and next year. This summer and next summer will be the first two summers in that 100 wing. And that again will be wall tiles, floor tile, ceiling tile. Um there is the case work. Most of the case work you can all see where it's duct taped down. And so that's going to be able to be replaced and and not loose. when we go through and do those remodels and replacement of casework, I'm not sure that you really call it ADA compliant, but when you have uh the first grade or the kindergarten classrooms that have the short cabinets, when we redo those sinks
132in there, we build them so that a wheelchair of that age group can be rolled in there and use those facilities so they're they're tucked in. And also then we bring in the uh bottle filler and instead of the old drinking uh drinking fountain that are in those classrooms. And Magguire Middle School, we're replacing the heating and air conditioning uh system or dehumidification system for the pool this summer as long as well as uh I guess about the last three summers we've been working on interior finishes there. But we'll be working in the pool, both locker rooms, pool locker room and the regular locker room. Uh redoing finishes, replacing uh uh lockers, uh the band and Maguire, band and choir classrooms will get new carpeting this year. a couple of the uh very original science
133rooms um will be getting the casework replaced and and new floor finishes in the Meuire building this summer. That's all I have. Yeah, kind of shift gears a little bit. We're going to talk about LTFM um and what we can use it for. Um, I'll be bringing you a tenure plan that I'll need you to take action on here at the next meeting. So, we'll talk about it tonight and you have time to any questions going forward. Um, long-term facilities. Number one, it has to be district own. For an example, this building that we're in, it's a lease space. I cannot use any LTFM or capital in this building for that matter. It only can be buildings that we own. It also we look at LTFM and replacing pieces. It has to be attached to
134the building. So if you take a building, turn it upside down, anything that falls out, I can't use LTFM funds, but anything that stays in, I can. And really, LTFM is here to prevent further erosion of our facilities to make sure that our our maintenance doesn't get way so far behind that we have really big issues in the future. And of course, the projects are are these are deferred projects, things that are like what Mike was talking about. These projects we're talking about are big projects, things that maybe should have been done years ago, but we're trying to get caught up now uh with this funding. And of course, we can restore it like for like if we change something, make a room bigger. I can't use LTFM funds for we have to use general
135fund funds for anytime that we're going to add something new that we don't already have. Hey, Bill. So, does the football stadium count as an attached to the building or is that not? It actually does. We were able to use when we replaced the turf at North here a couple years ago, we were able to use LTF fund to do that. Quick question. What's the backlog look like right now for you know, go go back one slide there. The um you know looking at your deferred maintenance projects like what what is our backlog? Are we stacked right now? Is it bad? We worked with a company. We have a lot of shaking heads in the back. I was going to say most of the stuff I fixed was broken when I came here 14 years
136ago and started working. Okay. I say we've made a lot of progress over the last uh approximately 5 years where um that's when the board decided to fund it at a higher level and we've been able to do quite a bit. We do have a 30-year plan that we put together with Amoresco here five years ago and we continue to chip away at those. Every year we look at priorities, what's in worse shape than others. So when I talk about a 10-year plan is really we know what we're going to do in the next couple years, but after that we we we prioritize on a on a yearly basis. That's why we bring a 10-year plan to you on a yearly a yearly basis and we ask you to take action because without action then
137we don't have any bonding or levy authority to get these funds. Hey did last year we passed the $20 million levy or $20 million bond and that was all used for maintenance projects. Correct. And so that is different from LTFM dollars. Those bonded funds are 100% LTFM funds. Got it. That we use for these projects. Um we'll be bringing another bonding um to you next spring um for the next two fiscal years. Um that's a way for us to keep our le our levy as flat as possible so we don't see fluctuations for our community. Uh so we will well we'll get to the numbers here in in a minute. Okay. And I think it's important that you just share like I appreciate keeping the levies and the taxes flat, but if if that means
138back to what Director Nicholson said that our backlog continues to get bigger and deeper and wider, like we're never going to catch up. And so I I think in your next proposal, it would be good to just know what number do we need, assuming if we had to if we had it to get to to get us where we need to go, but what additional funding could we go would we need to actually start to make that list shorter so that we can start getting to a you know an ongoing maintenance mode. You know what I mean? So I would like to see that. That's just from my point of view just versus because the status quo isn't enough is what I'm hearing. I mean, whatever we're getting, the backlog is is the backlog and
139it's still gonna and the backlog is continuing to grow. Yeah. Well, like I said a little a few minutes ago, we have increased our funding five years ago and I'd say the backlog is not increasing. It actually is decreasing. We're making considerable progress on our maintenance items on our buildings and they're starting to look really good. Okay, so what can we not use? Now, we get a lot of requests from our buildings. We want to fix this and we want that and we want some furniture. Well, those are all things that I can't do. Like if I turned upside down, well, furniture falls out, right? So, I can't use these funds to buy any furniture. Any general maintenance has to come out of our general fund. It's only deferred maintenance items that we can use
140for LGFM along with our safe our health and safety projects. Now, just to give you an idea the size of some of these projects, um Mike was talking about KTMS and mechanical systems that were replacing over a couple years there. So, we're be spending $3.1 million here in 27 when we're kind of finishing up that project. Um, interior service um services at LVE. You can see we'll be spending one two $1.2 million in 27 and that's a 2year phase project. So, overall quite a few funds to really upgrade that building. So, we're replacing all the cabinets like said before, you know, the the laminates all peeling off. It's all taped down. So, you know, we get that all taken care of. Um, click. Now, that's a big number. We usually try to phase our buildings
141and do it over two or three period, you know, years. But with Click, if you know, we have summer programming there every summer. It's absolutely packed all summer long. So, we only want to bring that building down for one summer. So, those those programs will be moving to a different building, but we're going to try to do all of that work in one summer. You're going to be very busy. So, replacing all the mechanical, all the cabinetry, interior, uh replacing the front parking lot. We replaced the back one a couple years ago, but the front parking lot will be replaced along there's also a fuel tank in that front that'll be coming out too. So, a lot of work going on there in in the summer of it says fiscal 26, but it's summer of
14220 I mean it says fiscal 27, but we'll be doing the summer of 26. So, a year from now, um CLE will get an overhaul. We shift over to 28. Um we got a roof replacement over at um Christina. Um, East View is going to now get some interior surface work. Um, OE, uh, there we're gonna get a new parking lot that year and so forth. So, you just get an idea of some of the planning that we do and really looking at the worst areas and hitting them first. Um, so right there are just those four are going to be about $6 million. Now, when we look forward the year we're in, 25, we're just finishing up. You can see the health and safety uh cost there was uh 987,000. That's really sits in
143in Damian's realm with all the different testing that we have to do um and any projects that he has to take care of. It's about a million dollars on a yearly basis in our health and safety. That's just part of LTFM. And then the the levy portion that goes into into the fund one you can see there was about $7 million whereas the building fund the bond area in 25 we we spent there $8 million. And looking forward you can see now in 26 look at that bond area. Remember, we we we brought out a little over 20 million. They were spending their little over $10 million in that particular year. Now, what we're seeing right now in construction inflation is about 5%. So, going forward in the future years, that's what we figure in
144is about a 5% increase until we see something different there. Um, so you get an idea what's happening there. So, we're spending 18 about $18 million just on our maintenance of our buildings on a yearly basis that qualify for LTFM. Now, now we're going to shift over to district 917. As you know, we're a member district of district 917. They're an intermediate district. They don't have any bonding authority. They don't have any levy authority. So, what happens is all the member districts all kick in to help them pay for their projects. Uh so, you'll see that when we do the levy, you'll see a piece on that levy is for district 917. So, we levy those funds uh for them. You can see they're they're spending a little less. Um, main thing with LTFM, especially
145at district 917, they don't own very many of their buildings. So, these projects are much smaller because they can't use these funds in their leased buildings. But, you can see there um we'll be um asking you to okay $32,746 um in next year's um pay 26 levy for district 917 for their LTFM program. Now challenges going forward. I guess well we've talked about some of them today. Uh but our aging buildings we have some buildings that have quite a bit of age on them. Currently mechanical projects are buildings pre1974. And that's where a lot of money right now is going into KTMS. Um unpredictably of cause you know things during the year break. We don't know they're going to break but we have to take care of it immediately. So we always have some contingency
146set aside. So anything that comes along during that year we can take care of and coordinating work. This is always very hard. Our buildings are used like we said in the evenings a lot but they're also used a lot in the summer. Um now certain buildings we take down totally like KTMS that building no action is going to happen in there. No type of programming because that we tore apart this summer but there's other buildings where there's programming going on. We we're doing some smaller projects. We definitely have to coordinate uh with those user groups to make sure that everything is safe in that building. Uh we have a lot of lack of storage space at our buildings and across the district as a challenge. We're having a hard time. We do have a a
147a facility, our track 2 facility with some storage, but it's a very small facility for a district our size. Um staffing, talk about challenges. We have people come and go on a regular basis. It seems like we finally hire a couple and then three leave the next day. It just that's the feeling that we get. And right now we have several openings in our custodial staff and we continue to work very hard to try to recruit uh new employees. And of course balancing needs versus wants. We have a lot of wants. We get a lot of ass from our our buildings and we have to stay within the funding that we have. So we that's a challenge for us and of course needs always outpace our funding. As you see all our dollars now have
148disappeared. So, with that said, good visual. Is there any questions? Yeah, I've got three. So, so, um, the budget cuts that we made a a couple years back, I think the goal was that we were going to close down the school buildings or all buildings for like a week or two weeks that would save cost. Are we still doing that or have we left them open? We are doing that with outside user groups. So, when we get to Christmas week, Yep. where we have a hard time getting enough staff to work on those weeks. We got a lot of holidays. We're paying double pay for everybody. So, the the week of Christmas, yes, we close down except for our athletic facilities that our teams are using. Um the Fourth of July week is another week
149that's hot and we don't have to necessarily cool our buildings as much when everybody's gone. Got it. So, so we are having energy cost savings. Perfect. Perfect. Uh, second question is I I thought I heard do we have like a separate piece of land that's not big enough to build a school. Um, I thought it was like across the street from Lakeville South area. 27 acres and it's still there and it's still ours. Yes, sir. And and and not proposing, but like obviously there may be some thoughts where maybe we put a storage facility there, whatever that might be. And maybe that might be something for you guys to think about. Oh, we got some property. Got it. Yep. And then the last question is that uh I thought there was a levy that was
150passed and I kept and I brought this up last year around uh the Lakeville South Dome. Would that be considered part of these LTFM dollars of building that out? Um first of all, the the domes the school district built the fields. Okay. The actual dome that's at North is not ours at all. It's a third party that comes in, puts up the dome, and then we're we're able to use part of it for no cost, and they put it there for no cost to them. So, it's kind of a tradeoff. Um, of course, there was talk about South getting one, too. But, at this point, there hasn't been any interest from another third party to put another dome up um yet. it. Has there been any interest from um uh members of the community coming
151forward and wanting to to to build that kind of like they did with the hockey rinks like a dome at South? I've had meeting with only one um third party. Um we talked about the cost and how it would work, try to match it up with the way we're doing the other and they didn't respond again. Brian, you had another I guess like my question with that is if that were to be the case or if someone did come forward um then it would kind of be competing with our the other dome, right? So I I guess I'm wondering how that would work because it would be kind of a conflict. I would if you had another organization come in and try to do a be competing against ourselves. The initial thought was the same
152third party that put the dome at north would also do the dome at south. But they're having a hard enough time keeping that the first dome full. So they don't see a feasibility of putting a second one off and being able to sell all the time. So at this point, they're not interested in outlaying anymore. So we like our our dome time isn't isn't fully used or utilized. Their portion with which they're making money on to make their payments on the dome is where they're having trouble getting enough time. Okay? And they know putting a second one up. They know they won't have enough time. So, in order to cash flow that business, they're not willing to do that yet. Brian, you had another question. Yeah. Um, and I believe there was some logistics issues
153for the second dome. Help remind me. I think the it wasn't relatively easy to put the dome up at South because you'd have to take out the the parking ramp or the the entryway as you walk into the south dome because that was supposed to be the driveway for handicap accessible parking. So, we'd have to build something behind the south dome or something. Is that what I heard? Yeah. the only the the one issue that we would have to take care of at the south dome is some type of parking for handicap accessibility which we don't have right now. And so the bottom line there's doesn't seem to be a need for another dome and um which then would probably negate any further discussions around even building out that parking. I mean we certainly don't
154have the funds to put up a dome so it have to come from a third party like we did with the north dome and at this point it's not feasible. Very good. Amber. Um, mine's not a question, but I just wanted to say thank you for all of you for presenting tonight. I know many of these roles are thankless positions. Like, you're not the front face. You're not the teachers that, you know, everyone loves, which we saw on the slide earlier. We all love you, too. Um, and um, I'm in the schools a lot at night for activities for my kids. And I'm just um, so grateful for the staff, their friendliness, their professionalism, the way the schools look. And I remember last year at the time my son was a preschooler and we had
155kung fu at Oak Hills. It was at night and I think someone probably didn't request a table or something and then the the custodian that was there at night. He just quickly jumped in, solved the problem. It was not his job to do so. Um and I just remember that as really standing out as someone going above and beyond. So thanks for all you do and appreciate appreciate um the work. Yeah. Thank you. Very good. Anything else, folks? Okay. Okay, very good. Bill, thank you. And for the other presenters, thank you also. Thank you. Okay, do any of the directors have a report? Amber, um, a couple of things. Um, last week I attended on May 8th the um, community education um, council. Um, a couple with with Superintendent Bowman, so um, chime in if
156you want. A couple of um, updates from that meeting. Um uh the budget was reviewed for the upcoming um academic year and um community ed is projected to have a positive budget again um increasing the fund balance by about um half a percent. They cons continue to see strong demand for their programs especially in cheerleading and um the small wonders preschool. Um and they're also increasing um summer um offerings including um quite an expansion of summer adventures um at four sites now um this this summer. Um so that was great news. Um and then also um with director Anderson um uh she and I attended the South of the River Powow at Burnsville High School on May 3rd. Uh this was a celebration um of uh for graduates from nine different school districts across um
157the area. Um and there were I don't know up three or 400 people maybe in attendance um at the school um and it was uh great to celebrate. We had um a graduate from Lakeville North there um but got to celebrate all the graduates. So yeah, very good. Thank you, Amber. Any other directors? Kim? So, we had our monthly meeting at 9:17 uh the this past week. Um, one of the things that I found very helpful was just um meeting the apprentices that they have within their district um pair pair professionals that are working on uh their teaching license and special education through um doing that practicum work within the district. So, it was cool to talk to them and hear about their experiences. Um, one of the things that they are um, working on
158as a district, their goal is to bring down um, the weight list for their programming, which um, we were able to reduce that quite a bit this year. Um, just alone, I want to say the winner, there were at least 25 kids that were moved off the waiting list. So, that's something that the district is working on and I know all the member districts are always eager to hear about that. Um, another thing they are considering which I thought was really interesting too, um, they're talking about different options for calendars. U, one of the one of them was like a 4-day week and then another option was like a 45 15day calendar. So for every 45 school days and they get 15 off. So um, just some of the thoughts they've been doing to match
159up student programming um, and try to meet student needs in creative ways and then also, you know, meeting the needs of staff. So that was the meeting this last time. Very good. Thank you, Kim. Anyone else? Okay, very good. Superintendent report. Just a couple things. Uh first of all, in appreciation to our teachers, um our core mission is teaching and learning and that always has to be first. uh all the things that we do and a lot of things you heard tonight are about supporting our buildings and our setting conditions and our classrooms uh for our our teachers to be uh all that they can be. And I just want to say to each and every one of them, thank you a million times over for the amazing things that you do in our school
160district and the amazing things you will do in our school district. So, thank you uh in appreciation. Um the just a couple comments on facilities um because it's a it's quite a history uh in this school system about where we are with facilities and plan planning and again a tip of the cap to all of you for the work that you do. Um because where we were and I'll just share a little story. Um, when I walked into this district in 2013, the way we did LTFM was literally on a paper towel from the restroom where I was handed this is what the project list is for the next school year. Um, not satisfactory then. Uh, but we're in a much better stance now and there's a lot of hard work that's that's gone on
161and and I know almost everybody over there. Um, and just want to say thank you for your work and thank you for helping our teachers be all that they can be. That's my report, Mr. Ver. Thank you, Superintendent Bowman. Uh, do I have a motion to adjourn? Uh, a second, please. Second. All in favor say I. I. All opposed. We are adjourned.