001e good evening and welcome to this working session of the Lake flary Schools Board of Education this meeting is being audio recorded so please make sure you speak loudly and clearly for the microphone so that it can pick you up we'll go around and we'll do introduction so that everybody in attendance will be recorded um and we also will have people from the tech department monitoring our microphones just because we' had some issues with those in the past so my name's Kim Baker I'm the chair David Anderson Vice chair alre executive director of administrative Services Phil hongan Executive Director of Business Services Judy ker Board of Education Stephanie Cass Communications Department Brie shley board of education Terry Lynn Board of Education Carly Anderson Board of Education Tracy broville director of technology and data services Emily
002McDonald assistant superintendent and then we also have superintendent Dr Dougan zile um remoted in too just so everyone's aware of that um we'll go ahead and start our meeting with um policy updates Brenda do you have someone for us I do we have a number of policies this evening um we'll start with policy 412 which is our expense reimbursement policy um there are very minor updates to this policy under section three Item B um there is a difference in the msba rec recommended model uh right now we have that the mileage rate is set by the school board and um msba is recommending the IRS rates on the second page of the same policy in let's see section four item D there is a language specific to Lakeville area schools regarding the purchase of airline
003tickets um that those tickets will be processed through the business Business Services office and in section five um there is specific language in this policy regarding uh the executive director uh being the the administrator that would develop a schedule of reimbursement rates um as well as directives and guidelines to address methods and times for submissions of requests for reimbursement and that is it for that policy okay on to the next one keep going all right uh policy 430 is a nepotism policy there is no msba model policy um regarding this one this is specific to Lakeville area schools so there are no changes or redlines to this policy the next policy is policy 432 which is the teacher code of ethics again there is no msba policy on this um this is specific to Lakeville
004area schools and it follows the statute of teacher code of ethics the next policy is policy 435 access to employee mailboxes and School District internal mail systems again there is no msba policy this is specific to Lakeville area schools and reflects an arbitration award that the district won um back in 2004 so no changes to that policy the next policy is policy 526 which is hazing prohibition there are some minor changes to this policy on item number four reporting procedures um typically uh policy like this would be having reports of hazing be made to The District human uh rights officer this policy has specific language that it is made to the executive director of special ed education and student services and the executive director of administrative Services um that is what our policy says currently
005the msba policy typically just has a School District Human Rights officer so this could go either way whichever the board decides um item C there is some red line there there's no change in language um it this is specifically just a reorder of the language there's no language change there and then the same thing for item number six um no change to language just a reorder of the language in that policy any questions on that one no okay uh and then the last policy is policy 704 which is the development and maintenance of an in inventory of fixed assets and a fixed asset accounting system this is a msba recommended policy we do not currently have this this policy in place and it was recommended by our Auditors to have this policy in place all
006right and that's it that was the last one okay does anybody have any questions on any so much for all the work on those appreciate it you're welc y thank you takes a lot of work to get all those updated it does so then our next one is supposed to be from the Board of Education policy committee um Brian's not here at the moment uh director Keller her would you be able to give us an update on that do you have those printed out I don't um do you have do you have them you don't have them either printed out I don't have them printed out to know which ones they were um Can it says it says 101 I know I know the number but what give me the titles for those numbers please
007do you have the titles anybody you want to just skip it and come back to it yeah I'll Pi them up because I was going to say I know what we change oh yes one thank you um so 101 is the um naming of the school district um 101.1 was I think the legal um name of the district and then we have 2011 which is legal status of the school board of education and um I know we went through those pretty detailed comparison to msba and did not see any changes and any changes that we did made just clarified it and more aligned it to our our terminology and the words we used um I don't believe in my perspective that there was any changes to change the concept of what each of the policies
008already stated it was just to make them a little more clarifying for what how we operate here locally is what that those were about so um I believe when they come out you can read them if you have any questions you can reach out to Bri myself or Brian but Wen to anything that changed the substance of the policy okay do you have anything to add to that no that's correct 101.1 wasn't a it was a a sub of 101 um yeah so yeah y there wasn't really any changes that msba has that we didn't have so we wanted to make sure we added it on to our policies okay yeah and then um the reason we're bringing it here then because then I think um once it's presented here here then you take it
009through legal to make sure that it's all legally good before it comes back to us to vote and you know do first reading and vote of course so then um when we think about these for our meeting next week the policies that Brenda um presented to us would be the ones that we vote on to approve and then we have to go through her first before we do that yes y all right any other questions on policies no all right and I just for attendance purposes Carol wasn't at the table um when we did introduction so I'll allow her to introduce herself real quick sir I'm Carol poter director of special services thank you thank you so much all right so we'll go on to our discussion topics for tonight um we have an implementation
010update presented by all right put it on oh thinking oh well all right well while that's loading um I will go ahead and get start so thanks so much for the opportunity to provide you with update um there's been a significant amount of work that has happened and continues to happen um related to our boundary adjustments since the board approved um those boundaries a number of weeks ago um so our intent here tonight is to give you a high level overview from each department um as you know the each department has their own expertise in this process and is contributing to making sure that we are ready to go and that our students and Families and staff um are ready to go um so I'll just kick it off by just doing a quick um
011reminder as you all know um that we have been in this um attendance area adjustment process for uh quite some time we had three phases the first phase um was really a planning phase and that started um started officially in the fall but certainly discussions prior to that um as we were building High View Elementary um the second phase of that um was our design phase um that really started in our in late fall of 2023 and continued through February of 2024 um we put together a design team both a design team and an input team um and then the third phase was really sort of the uh to finalize um and to work through the implementation phase which it started in February and we'll actually go into the spring but this is like an
012update on the progress to date um as you also know um we through our input team and our design team um we had um quite a a number of people that provided feedback um along the way um internal and external stakeholders um we provided two opportunities for um our families and Community to weigh in um on the various designs um and then the third opportunity was to select a preferred design so um so we had a uh a lot of um feedback back throughout those processes um and then immediately after once the board approved um the boundaries then the administration um began to take on the Implement oh there we go took on take on the implementation process um which is where we are now um our K8 principles we have been um meeting with
013them and talking with them and they really are doing a phenomenal job of preparing to welcome our students and families um they're in the process of planning events in the spring um both at the elementary and middle school as you know our high school um boundaries aren't changing at this time um they are thinking through what will be best for um students transitioning into those buildings and how they can make sure that they feel welcome um so in addition to Spring events they're also talking about event summer events and what that looks like leading it to the fall just going to give you one break real quick so for attendance purposes Brian Thompson walked in so um we have him uh recorded as being here thank you okay I'm here thank you beautiful um in
014terms of High View um as you know we uh did on board um our new principal frett um and he has been very busy um interviewing and um making selections um for staff for his building um so that is not uh that is uh pretty far down the track um expect to be released with um the rest of the Staffing shortly um he is also has planned to welcome events here at the district office we don't have the certificate of occupancy yet for the building um but he wanted to get in front of that and have an opportunity for families to come in I I think his first one's Thursday so um really starting to build those relationships with families which is really really exciting um bill can confirm but I believe we're still shooting
015for April 15th for the certificate of occupancy so then we we'll be able to plan some building events and tours and those types of things so that's great um in terms of Kid Zone um just a quick update um because the registration for kids z had had already started um all of the students that have registered have been um transitioned over to their new location um and anything in addition to that is currently just on pause um as we're sorting out the final Logistics related to um movement across the system so I'm going to turn it over to Tracy and Steph and they're going to talk specific about um some things in their area that they've been working on thank you uh in partnership with Teamworks and our student enrollment team uh we worked hard
016hard following the approval of the attendance boundaries uh we started off by reviewing the attendance lines um when you are working in a mapping system sometimes those lines are really thick sometimes they run through through the middle of a house and so we had to clean up all of those lines to make sure that we had clear attendance boundary lines uh we made sure that our students were geocoded correctly and geocoding means that we're taking a um physical address and putting it into giving it coordinates for a mapping system we made sure that our students were assigned to the correct School site within Infinite Campus and then we verified that that handy attendant Search tool that we have on online where people can type in their address we verified that that was working properly uh
017we also partnered with the comm's team on um many um uh pieces to this uh we sent out a communication to our K through 8 families to confirm their site assignments we worked with the comm's team to update the um attendance area uh adjustment web page and the enrollment web pages we also responded to families who reached out with questions and were in need of support we had a parent guide that our Communications team put together to help our families navigate attendance uh area changes we had a designated phone number that people could call and uh we had an email address that people could uh email as well yeah and I would just like to say in total we've had approximately 25 families reach out to us over these past um few weeks and um
018those calls have been really managed by Robin kala and Grace Olsen who have been working really hard to um listen to concerns and respond accordingly um they verified the school assignment in those cases provided the options that are available and posted on our website and um assured these families that our school administrators and our wonderful School staff are ready to support our um families and their students in the transition that's to come so we feel very confident in the plan um to this point and um have had really good conversations with those families in this case so we'll pass it over to Bill he'll talk a little bit about Transportation where we are with that oh ask a question about the uh the previous topic before to jump to Transportation hey so I've received a
019couple emails around students being able to go to different schools I don't know if this is an appropriate topic to discuss now or not so I'm just curious with things starting to normalize do we have updated metrics that show the capacity levels of each School uh and then by the grade because couple emails that I've seen was around fifth grade parents and eighth grade parents if they have the means or if they may be able to transport their children into the school that they were currently at uh what What's the rules around am I cuz I'm hearing like are we we not allowing that to happen so I'm just want to make sure I understand where things are at so if it's okay Brian we we there's that's part of the presentation okay so so
020if you're okay just holding that question just so you have all the information and then we'll come back to it great thank you okay um we met last week at Safety Committee looking at our safety zones Walker zones to do any updates that we need to do um mainly we really looked at the new building and where those walking zones and safety zones would be um um not a lot of big changes in the other buildings so that was that was good anyway we'll finish that up uh very soon what I can tell you is the start times in all of our current buildings will remain the same at first we were looking at some busing um issues that might um make us move some of that but no all buildings will yet start at
021the same time um Highland Elementary will be assigned a late start um with the buses available um and then at this point in time we don't have to add any buses because some of the extra buses we're using to to move kids from one side of the district to the other now we can use for our increased enrollment so we're looking at not having to increase any busing for next year so that's going to help our budget um and then of course um prili where receive Transportation updates in the portal one week before school just like we always do so you'll know exactly when your bus comes and what time you'll be picked up all all right sorry I'm Sor no sorry do you have any initial projections right now from shmid and Sons on
022what the budget might be for next year for them in regards to like hey this boundary change allowed us to stop going over to different boundaries you know like directionally we feel like there's going to be cost savings have you had initial like hard savings like hey this is how much it's going to be or estimat what what we're looking at is using the same number of buses we have this year so yes that's a savings because we won't have any not spending more because we projected more because we thought we' do additional routs because when we look at you know 150 200 new students we need more busing so every year we need more busing right so this next year we're looking right now that we will not have to increase any buses the
023number of buses the number of buses yes they'll remain the same so it just be the percentage change in the contract that we have on staying flat while we're adding additional student head count correct okay there's no Savings in terms of like yeah um gas or not having to go as far those kinds of things cuz you're not driving all the way across from one board to another we pay a flat rate per day per bus so it doesn't matter how many kids we doesn't matter how much fuel we' burn or how many kids are on the buses so then how are we actually saving money because if we're not if because if the kids are going to be at the same neighbor stop neighborhood stop to pick up kids we're not going to be
024adding any buses one bus a new bus cost about $75,000 a year yeah so most time we're adding a couple buses a year so that that increase is not there for next year at this point in time so can I maybe ask ask this question in a different way so in the preliminary budget that we have for next year um did was there a number that you were projecting that oh that's a good question yeah yeah so yes we did predict two new buses in the in the new year two new routes yeah so so we're saving those two routes and do you happen to know off the top of your head what that savings is it's about 150,000 a new bus they use one bus per year okay is 75,000 okay okay now those
025buses that we do add lots of times are running more than one route we're a four tier system so some of these buses are running two t two tiers three or four yeah of course we don't know exactly where that'll fit yet but each route is usually 150,000 or each bus each bus each each bus is 75 so it's roughly because we're staying flat it's about a $300 $300,000 were not spending each bus is about 75 oh got it got it 150 overall so so that's not significant savings I guess it's still a savings it's savings but how much do we spend in transportation like we're looking at 78 million that we spend in transportation so $150,000 savings is not a lot we're pushing 9 million but it's some dollars that we can put somewhere
026else in the plary budget yes okay absolutely thank you all right uh Staffing process um currently we are on track to uh release our staffing this Friday um any shifts in sections or classes would have an impact to Staffing going forward um contractual language for High View Elementary Staffing process has been met and completed so we've posted interviewed offered and have made placements for those positions um secondary notifications of non-renewal based on registration numbers have happened and Elementary and special ed completion of non-renewal notifications is happening this week um and the Staffing timeline requirements as long as we are on track this Friday have been met that back to me here um i' like to start off this Slide by um making sure we're on um the we're using the same vocabulary um sometimes people
027interchange intradistrict and open enrollment and uh so intradistrict our students who are our current residents who are attending a school outside of their neighborhood assigned school and open enrollment are students who are not residents of our district who are coming to us from a different District so regarding in District and uh open enrollment we had a team that came together to discuss implementation of the new attendance boundaries we wanted to make sure that it was a multi-disciplinary team so that we can get feedback from all different um departments within our um within our district we had staff from enrollment HR um student services and special ed teaching and learning Communications our design team and we reached out to administrators um when uh we needed to we met over the course of three months January through
028March to review scenarios and to make recommendations for open enrollment intradistrict uh enrollment school placement um for programs such as ignite and um impact academy uh we wanted to make sure that we best supported the implementation of the new boundary changes and as you can imagine we had um a lot of Conversation Over um o over the Open Enrollment in in District and making sure that we were following policy and statutes and um we could make the best possible recommendations those implementation recommendations were approved by our Administration per our school board policy and have been communicated out to families our current intradistrict and special programs have all been placed at their current current buildings based on our district policy and procedures per our procedure any new families who might qualify will be notified by April
02915th um open enrollment remains open per state statute and as required by law uh our students who are uh placed or denied based on uh capacity for open enrollment at the requested School site will also be notified by April 15th as far as our um any special uh Services placements in the instance where a student's needs can't be met at their neighborhood school they're placed in a program designed by the district and I'm going to hand it over to Carol Potter to share any additional information with you sure so special education Staffing is quite complex and U Mr Hayman and I started with our principles and so we met with each principal individually and we talked about the following things so we talked about the total number of students with disabilities that would now be
030at their resident home school um because that obviously has changed we talked about the needs of students including their space and environmental needs every student one student is not one student when it comes to special education and so there are different needs for space in the environment um there are different equipment needs some students come with a lot of equipment and some um students do not and then there's also the need need for accessible restroom so some students require perhaps a changing table of some sort or wheelchair access some different kinds of um needs and not all of our buildings have those and so we had to make determinations about where those center-based programs would be located we also then looked at the teaching and related services staff because that comes on top of all
031those pieces after we look at the student needs we talk about um where our special education teachers going to be placed what is their ler areas how many pair of professionals do we need to support those classrooms how many nurses if a student needs a one-on-one nurse if a student needs a a related Services nurse or a a building nurse what does that look like for the size of the building and then the same would go for occupational therapists where our students Landing where do we serve them um speech therapists and also our date FTE depending on the number of students at each site that DPE FTE would then change as well and so just a little bit about the student placement that Tracy was talking about so a student placement as far as special
032education goes is when the district makes a decision about where that student is best served and so if we have a center-based program at a site that's made up of um 8 to 10 students let's say that student will then be placed there so they would no longer be necessarily be in their home school there's a possibility that they might join a program at a different um School site and then as I alluded to because of the complexities of the special education Staffing the leadership team and our internal team we have been doing a lot of um layers and have spent many hours and we're still at the tail end of figuring out all of those pieces as we go but soon to be there question so do we have any idea when parent uh
033the families will be notified their placement as soon as we have all of these pieces figured out so Staffing will go out BR on Friday correct and so we should have all of our special education pieces completed as well and then as soon as um Dave gives us the green light to go ahead and notify we'll notify families so that's a big Improvement because in the past it's sometimes been August GL to know that thank you all right so that's our overview of what's been happening so we're happy to open it up anyone has questions are there are we G to get to my topic or did we talk about that already we go ahead ask question all right so go back to the previous slide I guess my question is just to make sure
034I understand while special education updates so thank you for that because it's well 20% of our student population is in that category but 80% of our population is just curious are we are allowing intradistrict so if they want to go to another school that we are allowing that or are we not allowing that so we as a general rule we have we closed intad District transfers for this year and next year so that we could move uh so the students would be able to move to their buildings um and we would be able to sort of address the capacity concerns as well as some other concerns that we had um during the boundary process so um there are some very specific cases in which that would be permitted um special education would be one of
035them specialized programming would be another um so obviously if we have open R students into ignite or into impact we permit that in in in District um to happen yeah so so the answer is no is what I'm hearing yeah not as a general rule we do not have it but did we do it last year no uh I thought we had we allowed open enrollment last year are we talking about year are you talking in District where if I'm zoned to go to Orchard Lake in this new uh boundary design um and if I want to send my kid to let's say like East viw or else is that allowable last last year we did do that yeah okay based on capacity okay yeah and this year this year and next year we closed
036closed that okay with with the exception of specialized circumstances like programs and just to clarify the reason is closed is because is because we because we are at the front end of trying to um redo all of our boundaries um and if you open up intra for example we'd have quite I would guess quite a number of students that would want to just go right back to the building that they're being moved from um and so in order to be able to get a handle on all the logistics around what we need to do from a system standpoint um that was the recommendation That Was Then supported moving forward to is to just close that for two years and can I just add that that's not an unusual practice we did that in the 1990s
037when we did a lot of bond adjustments and stuff and I know even when we open the high school we um froze open in District enrollment for three years so it's not unusual to do that during the boundary adjustments to give Integrity to the programs and the systems and just the overall process what's are the best interest for the students I mean if they're going to if they got to go to a new school at fifth grade and they got to go the new new school to eighth grade I'm just thinking as this is a boundary change it is a one of those Mulligans or oneoff deals where we may allow it but I guess I'm trying to better understand if if if we've done this calibration where the schools are not at 85 or
038or or 80% of capacity why are we not allowing kids if if they have the means to get there to finish out the term within the respective school that they were at for fifth grade and 8th grade it's it's one year and then they go to the new Middle School wherever they choose to go as long as it doesn't impact the capacity of the building now I know there's other logistics to consider which I don't know I'm just asking the question like why can't I send a fifth grader back to his school if they want to go there and if there's capacity at that building in the fifth grade level like so like grandfathering in the fif yeah grandfather of them in like what's wrong with that can I just can I just make I'm
039sorry can I just make I want to be careful about saying like when kids have the means or families have the means to do that let me rephrase that yeah is not available I feel like we if we were to make that kind of decision we need to make it available for all students so we need to either bus students who don't have the means to get there if they want to do that or I know that's an but I just want to highlight that it shouldn't be those who can get rides Y and those who can't but last year when we did inra District we didn't bust kids to different schools if they wanted to open a row or go through intra District to that school they could no we don't provide transportation for
040intra District transfers okay I have a question regarding the current interdistrict transfers that they continue to stay in that building is that correct I mean the ones that are that were have been they were supposed to go to one building and they're going to another one they're not kicked out they they stay correct that's correct yeah so then when we do open enrollment are we giving like if if a kid from Apple Valley wants to go to Lakeville and they go to East viiew but if a kid from who was Zone to go to Eastview and wants to go back and finish up Eastview at fifth grade we're not going to allow that but we're going to allow an Apple Valley kid to come in and do fifth grade the open Ro is different you
041have to allow State Statute it's a state statute but so we're ging open enrolling kids precedence well I going phrase that no open enrollment you don't have to they don't get to pick their school they they can pick the district we pick the school we pick the school correct does that sound right that is no what that that they pick the district school that that kids can't if parents want to move their kids or not move but if they want to transport their kids to a different school and there's capacity like what's the level of effort if like 10 kids get added to a fifth grade classroom and I I don't know the downstream impact this just seems this doesn't seem I don't know have we ran the numbers on to look the number of
042kids that that would be impacted on this and how it would impact the capacity and our buildings because I don't I mean if we're doing it through in District transfer I don't know that every student would want to do that they would want to go to their new building I I don't know it it's more than just it it it impacts how we staff with teachers how we staff with our Specialists and you look at all the components that they're looking at just from the special education services side there's a lot of um areas that are impacted by this it's how the busing all works um and again to Carly's point with the intradistrict Open Enrollment they have to bust their kids and so then it becomes an equity issue and so like issue already
043for those who do in District so well so yes and no but this is a different situation of equity because we're now saying if you're saying you want a grandfather those families in and all the families that can afford apologize let me rep pause I don't think I want to grandfather those children in what I'm saying is that let's open up intr District why are we closing that down and let them have the choice let them have the choice if they want to go they want to go let them have the choice to do it the equity issue kids can't but we still do that right now we do it right now because they choose to do it they have to but they don't have Lessing to do it so they have to drive their
044children to school but that goes back to what they were just talking about and what Emily had mentioned is if you don't pause intradistrict open and rollment you typically will then have everybody probably wanting to stay in their old schools and so then in effect we really haven't done boundary adjustments to come to the to the effects you could say that um right now we allow interdistrict transfer um we allow siblings so for this instance we wouldn't it would just you would have the choice if you want to stay in fifth and eighth grade but disciplines don't you know we could put some things on it I'm just brainstorming sorry with the rest of me we should unpack this more I I don't know I'm not aligned with just saying no but that's just one
045person not a or many so yeah but we have to be careful with the messaging that we share with the community too because we had a newsletter or a a newsletter that came out this week that talked about the um enrollment and Boundary adjustment process and that it's paused now and I I get that but if there's capacity in the school and if there and if it makes sense from a teacher Staffing whatever numbers wise and and and there's probably a lot of Downstream impacts that I don't know around if you added 10 kids and maybe you need to add more lunch tables and or or XYZ but uh but if the school's only at 80% capacity and they was previously at 90% capacity I mean it to me it's kind of like if kid
046if a student wants to finish if they can uh for whatever reason that the parents and the student may want to have may want to have for Fifth and eighth grade I don't know what what does it hurt what does it hurt do we lose money I don't so let me play the other side of that back to some of your conversations when we were talking about the actual boundary adjustment plan is you were very focused on wanting to make sure that the plans we support are are longer term so we're not moving kids again so doesn't this undo that thinking making the plan shorter and we'll be doing boundary adjustment sooner no because the schools are not at 100% capacity but I think that's because and if we're looking at just Fifth and eth
047graders that's not a long-term they're there for just one year for the kids themselves okay so now you're back to just Fifth and eighth graders not just open intra District open enrollment are you talking just for Fifth and eth well I think it' be intradistrict as a whole I mean if a per if we had it last year where if a parent in first grade wants to send their kids to Cher riew and we gave them the flexibility to do so I guess how how is last year any different from this year I mean I think the fifth and eighth graders should have can I just I don't know I'm confused one thing just want to acknowledge and I hear you saying too is like we don't really understand all the reasoning behind it and
048one thing I do want to respect is there's a whole team of people who like came together to make these decisions I would just say as a board member one thing that I've been struggling with since we made the decision is trying to provide an explanation to people about why we're not grandfathering or why so I think it um I don't think we can pretend to know all the reasons and I don't think it's necessarily the case that we should wait hold on just let me finish um I just think it's important that we understand um why so let's then let's ask what would be the top three reasons why the district decided we are not going to do interdistrict transfers across the board well Tracy can jump into um one of the things that
049when we looked initially at what that would look like from a grandfathering standpoint um for our Uh current fourth and seventh graders um I think there were a lot of questions that were raised first of all um around um Equity meaning we're creating a situation in which those parents that have means to transport their students um are and are able to do that are are able to make different choices in our system and so we want so then so then the next question we asked was well if we transported all students because we don't want to create an equity in the system what would that look like so we costed it at Bill big number yeah it's $825,000 $825,000 to bus um students back to in um going in in going into Fifth and eighth
050grade um we are um about to release Staffing um we have been operating on the original plan um and as a result um Staffing would be impacted because we don't know how many students are staying in each building so that would push um that would definitely push that process back um we talked about that we would have more shifting than the following year not just with staff but also with students so we're essentially sort of delaying a little bit um some of that disruption we had a lot of conversation about siblings because we said okay well what if we grandfathered in those Fifth and eighth graders and and look at that what if we did that because one of the things we did didn't want to do is create situations where families were split between
051two schools um and so at the same level right the many families are split between multiple levels right um and so we looked at what that would look like so then the question came well if you have a current seventh grader and you grandfather that and you say well if you have a sibling that's in sixth grade they're they can be grandfathered in two then what if you have a sixth grader that doesn't have a seventh grade sibling so now we're letting sixth graders come in that happen to have a seventh grade sibling but we're not letting other siblings come so these are just a few of the and then from a special ed standpoint um it would in some ways undo a lot of the work that special education have done to number one
052ensure that students um get to stay at their new home school right that they um in unless they're in a program and then where we're placing those programs based on space um and accessibility and needs of our students um and then it also impacts all our Specialized Staffing so if you're talking about things like nursing and OT and and those other things so as we are moving shifting kids from um back to buildings and then we have to sort of undo that then the following year so um and then the other thing that we talked about too and I don't know Tracy jump in if you have anything but the other thing we talked about is if you maybe you have a fourth grader currently and a third grader and we grandfather in so now
053we have people at two different schools or we approve siblings then that that student's going to go to fourth grade and then they're going to want to stay right so we have essentially undone in a lot of ways the boundary work that the you know we had 25 30 members on a design team we had 45ish members on our input team plus all the feedback that we had been responding to a long on the way so th those are just the things that off the top of my head that I know that we that were talked about in that um cross functional team at the district office um is sort of like managing that and how do we minimize disruption um and move forward in a way that that makes sense so can I so
054you said that $825,000 would be Transportation yes but if the in districtal rle we don't provide transportation say you would well we the question came we've created an inequity for families because some can transport and some can't so we just sort of went down the questions and as the questions came and then there are more questions um we just tried to unpack those as they came so if we don't want to do that because I mean you're right I mean there are definitely there are benefits and there are sort of drawbacks to I shouldn't say drawbacks just logistical um things that need to get taken care of whether you whether their grandfathered in or not and so at the end of the day the because of the level of complexity of all the pieces um
055the recommendation was that we just move forward um and close our intra and that 800 was like if we had no C so let's say it was just Fifth and eth and we didn't allow siblings that wouldn't be 800 right that that assumption is we would need at least one bus at each building you know we're driving down the same road picking up kids some are going to one building some are going to the other building okay so we have to have at least one route per building it's not it doesn't matter if it okay yeah that didn't include the siblings calculation which would only really come into play if we had more than 40 kids and we have to bus more than 40 kids you have to send two buses but so can you
056can you can you explain again like why would you then reactivate this two years from now because the equity issues will still be here two years from now with kids who can transport with parents who can transport their kids wherever they during the process um because the in District is going to like you're giving parents choices of of where they want to go so I guess I'm trying to better understand what the difference is between two years from now versus like just opening it up think about the situation that we're in right now like we're in a situation where anybody who's in a middle school or an elementary school who's going to have to move is going to want to stay at their home school what is wrong with that I I guess I don't
057know I'm just from a kids point of view there's there's nothing wrong with a kid wanting to stay where they are but in terms of the that versus in in District two years from now like this is a huge all across the district we're making a change and it becomes like kids who can do that versus kids who can't versus in District might happen because um you know I want my kid to go to Orchard Lake because I liked him I like impact Academy or I want my kid to go to a certain school because I'm a teacher there that kind of thing as opposed to like this whole group of friends is staying whereas this child doesn't have transportation from their parent because their parents work in the morning and they can't get their
058kid to school you know some is dayare situation some some is daycare they want their child there because their daycare is there and it's it's it's different for every family it's not like a large number of people that do that the would want to do that so in both cases the intradistrict Open Enrollment you can argue is not an equitable solution for our families but in this case this is the district making boundary adjustments and by allowing intradistrict Ro open enrollment to undo a decision or to backtrack on a decision that this board has made then only allows those that have the ability to open and to inter District enroll have the option to do that whereas the kids that can't so that's where the inequity comes in um a little bit stronger and more
059relevant in this case um but again you know I I think when we're looking from a board perspective our role is to be looking at what is best for the district and for our students and that's as a whole not for an individual person family or neighborhood it's what's best for the district and what's best for our students and so when we voted for the boundary adjustments um was it D3 um you know that was what we believ to be best for our students and along with that came the efforts to start all the um implementation process which was started immediately which is quite a ways down the road all the way from St Staffing to our our special education is now getting the information sooner than they've ever gotten it it's really put all
060the pieces into place to keep going and um I think we need to continue down that route with the decisions that we make and again we aren't going to be making everybody happy through this process but what we are doing is what's best for this district and and in the in the long run if you I mean just with what was shared with what our principles are going to be doing to welcome and start um sending the information and the details out to these families already helping them with the transition we need to keep down that positive path of helping them make these transitions to be as successfully as as successful as possible not just for the child but um for the education side of in the academics but for the parents parents are going
061to need to be able to connect with new families at their new schools those are their new schools as well as the students and I think it's really important for us to stay down this path and continue down this Avenue because I think what we have in place from an implementation process to get parents and students engaged in the transition will be very successful if we can keep it going down this track and not doing about face start over delay our staffing and go back to some families and you know oh well now we're going to change and have them start doing an about face I just I think we need to stay true to the decision we made and stay down that track so I appreciate your comment and I appreciate your point of
062view I'm not aligned with that point of view so my point of view would be I I'd like to have a uh I don't know I don't I prefer if we could uh talk through this maybe another working session or other additional options that can be available I hate to just cut it all together yeah and there may be various in instances for folks that may want to do in District I guess the question is like like what op like how could you make this work so um by our policy the board has to vote on in District transfers by March 31st annually every year um and that's what our special session is for after this we're having a special session after this did we vote on this last year I don't think we really
063changed we voted on things related to open enrollment capacity numbers policies I think as we weren making any so wait make any Chang so we can talk through it but we sorry I stop I I'll research more I I'll do some more research I I can I just add one thing because I just want to make sure that people are aware that if we um if we do make a change that impacts our staffing which we likely cannot complete until we know the direction that we're moving so that's piece number one um what I will say also is that um when we did run our numbers the Staffing is a it's not as um signicant if of an issue at the middle level because they have the teaming model um but it would significantly differentiate
064our class sizes um between Kenwood and centry centry would really be looking um at much higher class sizes because they would have more students divided over those teams um if you at Kenwood which is one of the things that we were trying to adjust as part of our boundary process was to make sure that we had some consistency also across the district so um so in particular from a staffing standpoint it would really be Elementary and that would be all of the um the special education and specialized Services um implications related to that so just just so you have all the information as you're having your discussion okay one one last question for those who have who are who are already in intradistrict do they get to continue that or do they we actually do
065yes yes can I just clarify Brenda like what when we talk about how this would Impact Staffing what what what are we talking about so it's exactly what Dr McDonald just said um there would be class size imbalances at a couple of our middle schools and we would not be able to put Staffing out this Friday I I can't tell you exactly when we would be able to it would be depend on the decisions that are made um but it would significantly delay the Staffing process any further questions on this it's kind M thank you all right we'll keep going um the next part would be our legislative update in January uh we were we had one on the agenda and we just hadn't received any information about this um so I pulled some information
066from amsd which is the association of Metropolitan districts um to just kind of give a broad overview of some of the things going on in the legislator right now um so I'm going to move on I'm sorry here one of the things that um happened this last week was the SRO bill was signed into law um that was on the 14th um that clarifies what types of physical holds can be used um requires training on deescalation and responding to mental health crisises um and sro's cannot be used to discipline students for violating school policy so those are the some of the things that were updated for that um and just to um also clarify they're looking at an update to the preschool lunch um program that we just had this year one of the things
067that we have noticed with the implementation of this uh program is that students that bring their lunch from home they can't get uh a lot of times they want the milk and so then they don't have any money in their lunch account because they're used to free lunch so then they will get the free lunch and throw the food away just so they can have the free milk so this update would allow them to just get milk in school districts to be reimbursed for students that are coming in for just free book um so that's just something which you get the Kings worked out like you find out some things right so um that's one of them um so I have like a few that we just going through like the house files that are
068going through right now in the Senate files um one of the house files that I think is kind of interesting would require school districts to provide students private space to receive tele Health Mental Health Services during the day um that's something that we've kind of been navigating after covid because people were accessing tele Health a lot more frequently um so that's in there um there's one to require or to for mde to establish a system for paying student teachers um I think that's really great because as a student teacher I didn't get paid so that would be great um if we could have that but I'm sure there's again some some things that they need to work out with that um and then the health standards is also um something that they're looking at right
069now those are locally determined standards and they want to switch those to how that the health standards be from the state um so that's another one I'm just going to keep going stop me if you have questions or if you hear other things can I just add something about the S1 sure that that one was signed into law and that was our representative Jeff witty worked across the aisle and it was a very collaborative effort by both sides to come to agreement on that and in talking to our um police officers and police um they are uh pleased with the results on that one so very glad that we kept them in our schools and doing what they're doing but um it was a very collaborative effort on both sides of the aisle to get
070that updated awesome thank you that appreciated um another one that we have right now is uh increasing the revenue for English Lang English Learners expanding programming and creating a Statewide parent and Community advisory Council for English Learners um there's also one to require cardiac emergency response plans in schools and annual drills now that we have like the cardiac units and most of our buildings um there's one right now that would prohibit book Banning by public libraries and school Li so um just going through some of the ones um there's one right now that would establish requirements for tier one and tier 2 special education lure and that would modify the requirements for lure via portfolio for tier three so those are some good things that can help bring in um maybe teachers from outstate or
071teachers that are just early in the program of going to school just to get them a lure so that they can be in the classroom and kind of help us fill some of those shortage areas um there's also increasing local optional Revenue um to $920 per pupil um just for inflation I'm sure you're aware of that one right we have the finance guy that would also reimburse school districts for uh for costs related to unemployment and family pay Med I leave so kind of updating some of those things from last year too um on the Senate side they've got some more things going on too um they want to provide more flexibility for districts to accommodate student needs learing Styles and professional opportunities um that's one that um is a platform item for not only
072the metropolitan school district for but for msba there's several that are advocating for that one um there's one to expand the use of special life teacher pipeline grants um provide additional resources to accommodate special life paperwork and free of time for teachers um that one's been on there like every year so I hope that we can get that one through one time um because we do have teachers that that get kind of bogged down with paperwork um there's uh one right now that's that a lot a lot of people are watching and working on it's amending the read act um they're talking about uh providing additional professional development to support that implementation and provide some flexibility with the timelines for districts as they Implement these um there's one that's a health one to modify current
073requirements for administration of medication and epinephrine um that would be more uh geared towards our nurses that are providing that medication every day for students during the day um there's a really interesting one if you uh have any students that are interested in journalism my son told me about it I would expand and clarify freedom of speech and press for student journalists so um that's kind of an interesting one um there's one right now for PA of professionals and I'm sure that um we've heard a lot about this year um just making sure that PA professionals are consulted in the creating and planning of training and that they get 16 hours of annual paid orientation provide health insurance to an employee that works four hours a day so that's one of the pair of professional
074ones more components to that one it's pretty complex so um that would sen Senate file 1318 if you want to look it up because there's a lot to that one um there's also one right now to require notice to parents if a student is removed from a classroom um and there's also one to amend the Northstar State education plan to remove the requirement of reporting an MCA score for students who op down um I've got one more slide want me to keep going because there's a lot going on you can work for a legislator I looked up a lot of different no we're not seeing any slides I just I know I'm just reading to you so that's fine it's okay I don't have a clicker but it's all good um so there's three more
075that I have on here that I uh had just um highlighted one of them is establishing and aspiring teachers of color pilot scholarship program um one would appropriate more than a million dollars for intermediate school districts to establish a special ed apprenticeship program so that would be like our district 917 that's an immediate District um and then the final final one that there's a lot of components to this bill that I'm sure Bill understands a lot more than me would authorize Energy Efficiency projects to qualify to long-term facility maintenance Reven including heting agreement so have you seen that one yet yes okay so so anyway those are just a few there's a lot of things going on next week as far as like some going to committee hearings and you can actually attend those hearings
076and AD I just I just I don't know the the um the legislator also is contining to move one through the cities are watching it very closely because legislation would remove the ability for cities to set their own local ordinances and Zoning related to housing and so that was brought up on the chamber monthly chamber call Access in government and um just wondering how that would impact schools as we're planning for growth if and they don't really have the answers and they're trying to get that but just to be aware that's not a school district one but it could impact us when it comes to planning how we plan if that zoning and um so just want to make aware of that too because that one is moving forward more thank you anything else questions
077okay all right so the next item we have on the agenda is an update from the public engagement committee and I'm going to pass it over to Carly all right um we had a meeting this week Terry and Kim and I and we talked about some um upcoming things so thanks to everybody who came to the home Expo on Saturday there were multiple board members there and we were participating with the Community Education um booth and that was a lot of fun we got to talk with different people and so that was one of the um engagement sessions we did um coming up in April we are meeting on April 9th with our Indian Community in Avan Lee and so um anybody is welcome to that board members um we are hoping that's we're trying
078to use these public engagement sessions as kind of the supplement of the time that we're so we took out a board meeting time in order to try to do a public engagement um so these are in place of some of our um board development sessions and so that is happening in April um in may we are meeting with at the Heritage Center that's May 14th does that make sense May 14th in the morning Tuesday it's a Tuesday at 9:30 at the Heritage Center so our goal there is to try to meet with um older adults in our community try to explain kind of um just recent things that are happening in our school how our schools are growing um where their tax dollars are going and those kinds of things and then is that just
079your committee no all board members yeah that's a Tuesday morning so unfortunately the Heritage Center doesn't do any they over the weekend so yeah um and then in June we are meeting with our Somali community so we're going to do that I I think we probably we haven't determined a location at this time but I think that is mid June as well we have a date I don't see that we have a date yet June we do have a date I don't think we have a date oh well we don't have a date sorry we do I think it's and we were looking at the Aven Community Center I thought it was the 15th but I could be wrong it's the Tuesday night June so the week after graduation that Tuesday night yeah okay that
080would be the 11th if it's a Tuesday that makes sense I'll double check that and let the board know so that that was confirmed um with um a resident of of the Smalling community and um I believe she's also serving as a liaison so um that was kind of what we have planned so far and then I think in July we have a lot of the pan prog events and we also talked about um going to the summer some of the things in the Elco new market area as well that's end of June I think yeah June so lots of exciting things coming up and this Saturday we were at the home show with the community ed and um I I found that to be a very positive event um I talked to a lot
081of different people I met a lot of different people um we had trying to think who all attended so I was there at one time Terry Carly Dave and Judy yeah so off and on we had quite a few people there lots of good representation and lots of good discussion too and Terry found a tree stump guy to take care of his tree yeah I did I actually hired the guy too he's coming over my stumps out I have a question sure did you get input on the form that we was sent out to the board are we going follow that's right yeah yeah follow I haven't looked at that yet I'm sorry that's all right um so I did send out a kind of like a rough draft of form for board members um
082this would be anytime you attend an event within the community the school district um chamber event any of those that you filled out um it's really just more for us as we collect data over how we're engaging with our community as a board as it's one of our goals um we're looking at like how many events we're attending um just to kind of gain Baseline data this will help us so that Kim won't have to track all of that information it'll automatically populate into an Excel spreadsheet for just so we can kind of get a feel for how things are going it's not just a track where I oh I know I I went into that and it says I need permission oh okay all right I'll update that so it was able to open
083it what I appreciate about it is it's just short and succinct have to provide any details why I wasn't able to to open it so CU I have some to add went to the 50th anniversary of our ECFE program oh yes so that was fun that was was Friday night um I was planning on going and then by chance I got to babysit my 2-year-old and 8-year-old granddaughter and Grandson so we had fun aw so that form will be resent to us yep so I'll I'll make sure that everybody has permission to log in and just anytime you go to an event fill it out it can be after it doesn't have to be before again that's just us Gathering some baseline information as we do goals so that we're making databased decisions see we
084attending and then try to increase that every year um we are starting to get some um board or building administrators that are inviting us to events too which is really nice because we weren't getting that before so just hearing that administrators are hearing that we're interested in going to things and getting that feedback that they're inviting us to those certain things I think Molly sent out um the invites for the Early Childhood so we appreciate you receiving so yeah yeah and if just for the record if they have them it's probably preferable to send them to Kim Elson because then she sends them to us and she can actually log them and track them and send us an official invite so we have it on our calendars right or if you have events in your
085building and you need volunteers to run things too like we would be happy to do things like that as well but funneling it through Kim is the best Avenue yes send it to Kim yep all right so for um our next item we are we've completed all the items on the agenda but we do have a special session scheduled at 7:30 so so the board will join or aour for now and then we'll come back in a special session at 7:30 thank you