St. Louis Park Schools Schools School Board Study Session 6/9/2026

001Hi everyone. Um, I'm going to convene the June 9th, 2026 6:30 study session at 6:35. We'll start with our land acknowledgement. We are gathered on the land of the Dakota and Ojiway peoples. I ask you to join me in acknowledging the Dakota and Ojiway community, their elders, both past and present, as well as future generations. The St. Louis Park Schools also acknowledges that it was founded upon the exclusions and erasers of many indigenous peoples, including those on whose land this school district is located. This acknowledgement demonstrates a commitment to dismantling the ongoing legacies of colonial power and the district's desire to support the ongoing work of local indigenous communities to thrive in our schools. So, because this is a study session, we don't have to um approve the agenda. So, we're going to start out

002with some um discussion items. And the first discussion item is the school resource officer partnership data update. and Dr. Cooper will be presenting with guests. Welcome guests. >> Thank you. >> So, as they are transitioning um and getting set up for their presentation, I'll just um set the stage. So, we have completed one full year. Oops. we have completed one full year of our agreement with our SRO's and it was a request from board members to present our data. Um so today in full transparency we are like I we've mentioned before I mentioned before we are creating a data dashboard and one of the things that we are designing in the dashboard is um relevant data that we can use in our framework when we are analyzing how we're doing in um culture and climate.

003So um if you are when we when they go through the um presentation if there are data points that you feel that you want to hear you want us to want us to track please let us know so that we can build that into the dashboard and then we'll have that data tracked um for future references. All right and I'll turn it over to Dr. Cooper. >> All right. Thank you board chair Mancini and Superintendent Dr. Hines and board. Um thank you for this. I'm Dr. Kino Cooper, assistant superintendent here, St. Louis Park Public Schools. And this here, we just want to give a high overview of this significant moment in this partnership of this first year under a formal agreement uh with our SRO's. And before I go any further, I do have two

004guests here that I'll let them introduce themselves so I don't mess up any titles. So, >> hi there. I'm uh Matt Bloms. Uh up until about a week ago, I was the sergeant that oversaw the SRO program. Um, and uh, now I'm currently a lieutenant, so I'm kind of uh, transitioning out, but uh, happy to talk to you about the uh, solid foundation for the partnership we've been able to build uh, this year. >> And hi, I'm Dennis Hagen. I am the lieutenant of investigations. I also oversee the school resource officer program. Um, Matt does it all. I'm going to say that right now. Um, >> our SRO's do it all. That's true. So, thank you for having us. I appreciate it. >> All right. Thank you all. So, um, as we look at this,

005as I said before, this is our first year of being underneath an agreement, and we're just going to take time to highlight about how we've brided this gap between law enforcement, our student body, and how we had focused on safety training, and also specialized programming that took place. Just a couple of highlights that we did this year was one of the first things we did was our scenario training where we brought in all of our district leaders along with our SRO's and SLPD to talk about what are things that could come up and how do we handle it and have and go through those different scenarios and have discussions on what to do. Um, I'm going to skip down to our ERPO training. And what that training was, that was a new law that came

006passed in 2023, and it's the specialized extreme risk protection order training. And that is when we had all of our administrators and other leaders come together, assistant principles to what were steps to do in the place um if there was a threat assessment that involved weapons. And that law is put in place to remove weapons from individuals or for them not having it again. So another safety layer that we had training on. Also at PSI they did co-eing with our SRO to talk about bullying and once again how to once again uh have anti-bullying and have students be stand up um against bullies. And then I'm going to pass it over to talk about our other highlights. Some really cool highlights. >> Yeah. So, uh, a couple other things that we did this year is,

007uh, we were, um, excited about the roll out of our first senior police academy, um, for our, uh, senior citizens with the adult education. Um we have we for years we've had a a citizens police academy uh where individuals from our community can come in who are interested and learn more about what it is that we do all of the different uh all of the different divisions and teams that we have within our department. Um this was kind of a build a building block out of that our uh it was a it was a team effort between our community outreach uh division and our school resource officers. But it was just highlevel overview of our department resources that we have available and some some uh I guess information that kind of tailored to the the

008senior uh population within our within our community. Um, another thing we did was the I love you guys training which was uh well attended by both district partners uh as well as our department and the fire department uh which kind of went over the reunification piece of a uh that we hope we never have to use. But if we get uh repetitions on it now, uh we will be better off in in having a uh successful reunification with family members in in instances such as those. Uh just really started really good conversations about who is responsible for what piece of these things, how how law enforcement can partner with with school staff in the in aiding and securing those sites. uh surrounding you uh unification. Um but just uh just very good very good conversations

009that came out of that on our end for planning uh on the fire s on the on the fire department side and as well I'm sure with uh with you and your teams. So uh really really cool stuff. Uh very happy to be a part of it. and you know the department we we really focus on our our community engagement and that is community you know your staff and our uh school staff and our students are a very big part of that. So it's very important to us that we that we be uh that we be good partners in in in uh w with the district. So, >> and because collaboration works both ways, um, by you choosing to do the I love you guys training and inviting us in, um, what that does on

010the back side is, a lot of people don't realize this, but St. Louis Park for over 12 years has been involved in changing in training all of Henipin County agencies in response to uh school shootings or other active shooter events. Um, but what we haven't been is engaged with your staff. And after this, what it did was it opened the door to us having conversations with our fire department and our police command staff on building up those plans for if we ever have to experience anything. But even better yet, just because we have that plan for a active asalent, that doesn't mean we can't use that for other events or scenarios that happen, right? So, um, that sparked conversation between our command staff and our fire staff, and we're hoping to bring you guys back

011in on that conversation because, um, we we love the I love you guys training. Um, but the reunification part is so big that it's not that simple, right? and Dr. Cooper and I just had a little discussion about it. There are little things in there that we could be better at, right? And that's going to involve us being together in one room talking about that. So, I appreciate that. >> Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I can't stress the importance of enough of that about us being on the same page and we hope we never have to come in that situation, but it's very important that we're all on the same page across the district. Now, here's some data that we have that was collected. And once again, this is a high overview. At the

012start of the year, we decided to track data by having um our administrators and SRO's complete a form that if there was a data request to collect the information, but along the way is that there are times that our SRO's have such a relationship that they're consistently in the schools. They're consistently checking in uh tracking uh or talking with our students and talking with uh administrators. So this data is a high overview of the time that we've had data request um or to go do a wellness check. So the different type of incidents that occurred where our SRO's were involved with truency uh wellness checks um family disputes so if there was mediation that was needed support doing uh domestic related concerns student safety there was an immediate threat and it came to a threat

013assessment and the threat assessment was reached a high level we included our SRO's in that part of the incident. Yeah, I'll just kind of go a little bit further into a lot of, you know, like Dr. Cooper said, a lot of what we do, a lot of what our what our SRO's are there doing is is fortunately not um having to spend a lot of time with the true emergency situations. They address them when they come up and they and they they take them very seriously. But a lot of what it is, uh, as you all know, I'm sure, is is the the day-to-day contact with the students, the staff, and again, just building that relationship. Um, to to our our biggest thing as a police department is we want people to feel comfortable coming

014to us. And part of that is the effort of outreach to make to to building relationships when they're not when nobody's in trouble, there's not an emergency, just checking in, saying, "Hey, how you doing?" Um, and just showing the the the person side of the individual in uniform that that's working at their at their school. Uh, another thing that we've gotten a lot better at as a as a as a group. Uh, meaning the district and the police department working together is the threat assessment situations. Uh, the communication I feel is phenomenal between uh the the district or I'm sorry, the buildings their their se their management staff and our team and we're able to kind of work through those. you know, each of those can be very different um one from another, but working

015together, we're able to to ensure that we do everything that we can to create a safe environment out of, you know, what potentially could be a a safety concern. So, that is uh a lot of what we've been able to to do and we we have wouldn't have been able to do it if we didn't have uh such a strong partnership. Lastly, what was kind of uh a really cool just symbol of of our of our relationship was the response uh and and the coverage of the gra high school graduation. Um, you know, we were able to to work together to make sure that the the safety concerns of staff, the the intelligence that that were was getting relayed, that was that we had enough people in place to make sure that it went off

016as smoothly as it could. Um, and that was we we as as these things do, they develop last minute kind of things. Um, but we were able to get everybody together, work, come up with a plan and and and move forward. And I feel like uh while you can always you can always learn and you can always uh do something do it better. Um, it was handled very well. And not only that, we came back together afterwards and met and just kind of talked about what went well, what didn't go well, and how we would do it next time. um to make again just to make sure that that we we be or we create a safe environment for these exciting things to happen. So, >> well, I I can't say enough about that either

017too about the support at graduation, how quick we came together and I really think about and I just a big shout out to our SRO's because of the relationships that they have built with community. It really really eased a lot of different things that if you were there at graduation, you didn't even know what was going on. But because of the professionalism of our staff and working with our SRO's made that event really great. Um, so it's been a really great year and we're always looking for ways to improve our partnership and collecting data. So at this time if you have any questions and also ways to hey, how can we collect this data better? Thank you for the presentation. Um, thank you both for being here as well. Um, I saw I know that

018there was a question asked in advance about um, use of force and things like that. So, it sounds like there were no incidents of use of force this school year. Is that >> Yes. Yes. That's Yes, correct. No use of force uh this year. um or no none of those things and everything was once again directed by the administrators when SRO's had to come in uh and be involved and if it wasn't a situation where uh the SROS got a tip of something then they did reach out to our administrators so it was a partnership >> um I was I had a lot of curiosity around the um sort of relatively high numbers that we saw of counts of incidents involving SRO's at Peter Hobart and then Aquilla a little bit um is significantly higher

019than our other two elementary schools. So, I don't know if you can speak more about what those were specifically about um or just more generally, but I think going forward it would be incredibly helpful to have a breakdown not just of the school, but um you know, what was the incident type um you know, some demographic data on who was involved with that um and just a little bit more about the outcomes. I don't know if that's planned for the future. >> Yes. Um, and I was given descriptions, but I mean that's a good point to being able to track data and have it labeled under what was the uh category that it would fall under. Uh, but different things that fell in like student safety. It could be like I said threat assessments um

020whether there was uh students or something that you know were wellness checks and we haven't been to school. So um it's a wide range of different things but we tried to break it down to those four categories but that is something that we could look at in the future. Yeah, I think if we could break it down um by site, you know, sort of breaking down the demographic data, incident type. >> Um and I'll just note um it's really kind of hard to know because the descriptions are really broad here. >> I have some concern if if we have our law enforcement partners getting involved in um truency. that feels a little bit outside the context, but if it's, you know, again, without knowing more, is this like a proactive outreach? Is this a a

021kids running out of the school? Right? Like I I don't really know. So that but it just raised a flag for me when I see that. >> I go ahead. >> I could give you a little bit of background. I mean obviously high level I I I don't have every incident um you know to memory but uh most of the time when it involves truency it's kind of an outreach incident where like uh staff members will ask our SRO's to you know this student hasn't been to school in this many days uh we just want to make sure that a they're they're planning on still attending here if they're willing to talk to us. Otherwise, it's kind of a welfare check type thing or outreach. >> Sure. Yeah, I can see that in the Thank

022you. That's very helpful. In the context of a welfare check, >> I would then like, you know, in that context as a board member, I'd want to know like has our school staff reached out first like what outreach attempts have we made before we're asking our law enforcement partners to go reach out because that impacts trust like with our families and our community, right? And so, um, those are just some of the the initial thoughts I have based on what you shared. Thank you very much. Thank you. One thing I'll just add is um I'm I'm being very cautious in the details of the data in the presentation because we still have fura and because we are a small community because there in some sites there are low numbers of events it's easy to identify

023what the situation was who was involved all of those details. So, I'm being very cautious in um the details of it all. I think that that is information that I wouldn't want to present publicly um due to data privacy, but we can send we can begin to send those that detailed information to board members if that is a desire of the board. Yes, I I wholeheartedly agree, especially at sites where we're talking about like three kids or even 10 kids. Um we are a small community and those numbers are really small. Um but because the board does enter into theou um and the you know the contract with the city, I I would like to be able to review a little bit more detail. Again, it doesn't need to be individual specific detail, but I

024think the board having access to that would be important. Is that it? >> Yes. Thank you. Taylor, did you have some questions? >> Um, I guess I would just uh second a lot of what Sarah had said. Um, and I I guess for me personally, I'm not so concerned about necessarily by sight data. Like if it could be just by incident across the district, so that you don't get into that issue of, you know, those three incidents, trying to divide those by incident type um or even by like grade level if that might be more um interesting. I don't know. Just try kind of trying to see the different ways we could look at the data would be interesting. I think uh some outcome data would be helpful as well. Um and then uh I

025think yeah just kind of defining what those incident types mean. Um along with what Sarah said about truency I guess like student safety concerns feels like there's a lot that could fall under that like what does what exactly do we mean by that would be would be helpful just for future reference. >> All right that's all I had and then thank you very much for for the presentation. >> Thank you. Do other board members have questions? I have a few. Um, so it's hard, you know, because I'm coming from I'm an educator. I've been a high school teacher for 28 years. So, and a middle school teacher. How um you talked a lot about the the highlights of the partnership, but how do the how do the day-to-day interactions, how do you partner with our

026district? Like what how do you use the data and how do our district administrators or our social workers, how do they use the data in order to address concerns in the for students and families? Well, um, thank you for the question. But, uh, high high level overview, let's say if I go back to truency. So, we could use that data just to see how many times um, and it was a there's a process that we'll follow when it comes to students before we do contact the SRO, but we can use that data to see how many times if a student has been involved in a situation involving a SRO, uh, to have to go to, you know, more, um, I certain levels of response to it. Um, also this here was just like we're getting

027a lot of baseline data too as well. So this is our first time collecting a lot of this data. So you can see it and see what the number of what students showed up um what families might have showed up which could cause you know us to look more deeper but this is here is getting us some good baseline data. >> Um like I totally get it. I understand what you said earlier um that it's hard to track every single interaction that SRO's have with students and things like that, but it I would be um just to use a Sarah term curious. There's um from my perspective as a teacher, there have been many things that the SRO was able to deescalate >> that it didn't it didn't go out of hand because the SRO

028had developed that relationship. Um, so I would be curious if there if we had a conversation about how to find out how to try kind of I I mean because it's so qualitative and like sort of anecdotal. So I get it that it's not the the best quality of data to make decisions on, but it does help to the board especially if you know there's very few of us who get to go into the building and see things. I mean, we we got to see a little bit of action on um at graduation, but that would be I I don't know something. I don't know how you would do it, but it would be I would be curious to see the deescalation and the number of times when students have because they know what is

029happening, they share information and so we're able to prevent a bigger thing from happening. >> That's been my experience with SRO's. have only um as an educator they've you know prevented fights from happening and things like that. >> Absolutely. because I know there's probably been things if you want to share that have come up to be able to get ahead of u they found out maybe things with something was going on in the community maybe something social media but being able to get ahead of it um would be things that yeah we can look back and figure out how do we track that data how do we track our SRO are always in the schools always talking to students always talking to staff so it's just it's always tough to try to you know get

030that data but something that we can look at and see about like you said the escalation that's coming to place >> I don't know if that's the right term but That's how I see it. >> Did you have a comment before I take one more question? >> Uh, just in terms of kind of the tracking and stuff, we have taken a pretty much a hands-off approach to tracking on our end for most things because we don't want their names in reports when it's not necessary, right? So, one thing I would say is a lot of that deescalation and things like that, if it doesn't rise to a level of a serious offense, we really don't want them writing a report because that's part of the trust, right? So, um while we could, I would say

031if you can keep that at the district and the school level, I I I just think that's best. But we certainly would work with our SRO's in any way possible to help in that way. Thanks. I I appreciate that. And I just had a question about um working with the community. I know there are a number of activities that police are doing in St. Park like fishing with police or basketball with police this summer. And I was wondering if the SRO's go to those or is more >> Yeah. So, uh, typically those events are are, uh, are run by our community outreach. Uh, so while and and in the last few years, our SRO's when when school's not in session, they return back to patrol. So it's very possible that they would attend here and

032there but they are not assigned to those uh to those you know to those events just because we it's it it's it's interesting because our community outreach is primarily responsible for the outreach to the community. SRO's get involved when it when it when it does do deal with um students or school related things. But uh we don't we aren't able to always make sure that they go to those events. numbers are good and it's kind of unfortunate that I because I'm sort of curious to how would the students experience everything and you know maybe even sort of random students like how do I have I noticed have I noticed interact with me just some thoughts for future like presentations whether we might get something quantitative and you know it seems like part of what you've

033been mostly it's been positive. >> Thank you. >> Seeing no more questions. Thank you so much for coming. We really appreciate all of the the work that you did. Thanks, Dr. Cooper. >> Um and now our next discussion item, uh Dr. Cooper gets to do the sequel. So, it's block schedule transition update with principal Kelanowski and principal paddock. I almost said principala. I was struggling for a second to >> All right. Thank you once again for Chancini and Superintendent Dr. Hines and board. I'm just going to pass it over here to our wonderful secondary leaders as they share an update of all the things they've done this year with block schedule. >> Thank you. Good evening, Chair Mancini, Superintendent Hines, members of the board. We are happy to give you an update on preparing for

034the black schedule, which has, if I may speak frankly, been a lot of work this year, and we've come a long way, and we're excited to be in a position to be able to roll it out and to share um what we have been uh working on this year to prepare Um so one of the reasons that we delayed uh in implementation of the black schedule was to spend this year preparing and doing some very intense professional development. Not only well it really was in two parts. As administrators we got some very intensive professional learning around leading through change as well as the train the train the model or train the trainer model that we then did with our staff. And we I'm gonna be real. This is the deepest professional learning that I have

035experienced in my 28 years as an educator. I have learned a lot this year um about many things. Um but essentially the goal is really to ensure that we are keeping our academics highly rigorous and also to ensure that we are maximizing our time within longer instructional periods while keeping student needs at the center. So, our students have been concerned about sitting too long, um around not being able to move, about, you know, being bored. And so, we've talked a lot around how are we keeping um that rigor high? How are we incorporating movement? How are we ensuring um different learning opportunities throughout the hour? And a lot of that is related to um what you can see on here is really breaking down that standard and benchmark. DK is depths of knowledge which is

036a way to determine the rigor of the standard and the HS matrix is a is a tool to help us read that. Um so we did a lot around again that rigor but then how are we changing um how are we creating lessons that go through zones of empowerment which is the different levels of learning. So making sure that students aren't sitting in recall the entire time that they have a chance to apply their knowledge and actually transfer their knowledge and do really highlevel thinking um and creating with the information that they're learning. Instructional stances is really around what the teacher themselves is doing. Are they in a mode where they're lecturing and giving information or are they facilitating learning? Are they shifting between roles? because we want to see our teachers moving in different

037ways to support the different levels of learning. Um, and so those are just some of the topics that we've been doing some deep learning on. >> Good evening everyone. Um, I think as Melissa or principal Kelanowski was saying, um, it was really about looking at what those, um, learning experiences look like with a larger period of time and really, um, focusing on the portrait of a learner and ascend in creating those experiences. And so some ways that staff are being asked to apply this learning is by creating instructional guides um that really unpack standards and benchmarks um and how those look um in the classroom, but not only how they looked in the classroom and what that learning experience is, but how are we assessing and how do we have evidence that learning is happening

038in our classrooms. Um we've done that work through our care team cycles and then also um by the end of the year each staff person was asked to create a culturally inclusive backwards design unit of study. Um and then we're providing feedback on that so that when they come back in the fall we're really setting them up for success. We're also very excited that the block schedule is going to enable us to meet student needs. Um, one thing that both the middle school and the high school will be offering is what I need or win time and or flexible time for students to um experience different opportunities. So students might be able to opt into some enrichment and extension opportunities. It's an opportunity built into the day for reading and math interventions if students are

039needing that test preparation and review, extra work time on projects. Really kind of the sky is the limit on what additional learning opportunities they um can have and it at the middle school it will be based on a lot of student needs and interest as well. Um and I'm going to turn it over to principal Paddock to talk about the advisory schedule. All right. Um so um we both also have regularly scheduled advisory. Uh the high school currently has one advisory um a week and it's alternates with wind. So every other week we have advisory called park connections. We decided as we were kind of figuring out what's the best fit schedule or bell schedule for the high school um that we would implement uh park connections one time per week that would take place

040on Mondays and then Friday schedule we would have a weekly wind time to support students um however they may need um as uh principal Kellan Kalinowski had discussed and at the middle school they are going to be having when an advisory um what I I don't know what you call your advisory. Did you just call it advisory? >> Yeah, just advisory. >> Just advisory. They just call theirs advisory uh three to five times per week. >> Just to add on to that, we actually have scheduled advisories as you'll see in the schedule every day, but as we get started, um some of those advisory periods will be our flex periods. And so we'll start with one a week as we kind of get dip our toes into it and then we can increase to two

041or even three if it's working really well. but it's going to happen during our advisory time. Um, in terms of serving our students receiving special education services or ML servicing, um, the black schedule is going to allow a full range of servicing and support um, within the block schedule. So depending on the servicing um, need of the student, classes may be blocked. And at the middle school, block classes will meet every other day and all courses are year-long courses or they could be offered as a singular period every day depending upon what that particular service is. So, for example, at the middle school for a student that might be receiving um um alternate like language arts, that would be a blocked period just as language arts would be um for all students that would be

042blocked and they would receive that every other day. for students receiving social emotional skills, they might have that as what we're calling a mini period um either for 40 minutes every other day or possibly 40 minutes every day depending upon what their IEP calls for. And same with ML servicing. If a well any Kotat class whether it's special education or ML um Kotaats will follow the blocked schedule um schedule for that. Um, and then pull out classes will be scheduled as either block or a mini depending upon that level of servicing that the student needs based on their IEP or their access levels and how much English uh development support that they're needing. And then at the high school, our after working with our um ML team, um they there will be no difference in

043our block schedule for our multilingual learners except we all of them will have um all students that receive foundational English that will run the course of the entire school year. So they will have that every day blocked for the entire school year. Um, as far as special education, um, we are creating a schedule that will be alternating ADB days for math, ELA or English language arts and skills classes. So, those are our sheltered courses or the courses that are like more small groupoup pullout courses. And then our co-ta and math will also be AB alternating days. I'm going to me again. Um and then as far as there's been a lot of questions about IB and AP AP support and so those will remain two-term because they're usually um happen as a year-long class. So

044they'll be two-term um courses. Um but we have made a plan that during that weekly wind time, students may receive supports and resources and materials from their instructors uh on those Friday those Friday uh wind days as they prepare for the spring exam because there's a lot of there was a lot of questions about what if I take AP bio and I take it or IB bio and I take it in the fall, what do I do um in the meantime before that exam? So there will be supports that take place weekly during when I also want to just bring to your attention just a couple of other things that aren't IB or AP support but are just specific to the high school. One is music. So we felt that it was really important that

045students since they perform year round that they are provided a year round opportunity. So those will those music classes will be run um on an AAB Bday schedule uh throughout the course of the year. And on the opposite of that, um we're currently building the schedule. So there will be either a grad required class like an ELA or a science um or we will create a pool of electives. And then lastly, I'd like to mention our AP human geography. All 9th graders will take um AP human geography blocked for the entire school year. And what we've done there um is integrated bar or our building assets reducing risks model and strategies into that course. So they're not only getting support of like experience in AP uh course for the first time, but they're also getting

046the bar um strategies for success throughout the whole school year. All right. So, just to go a little bit deeper into the actual high school schedule, um we are scheduled as a 4x4 block. That means most students will take four courses um per the first half of the year and then another four courses uh the second half of the year. Um and it gets it gets real mathy when we start talking about this. So, um just if you have questions like please ask. So each day students will take four peri there are four periods um and they'll take those over four terms. So students actually have 16 sections to take courses in. Some of those are year-long courses. Some of those are um which would be two two of the terms. Some of them are

047one term which right now is a semester course. Now it's shrunken to what we would say is a quarter course. So, please ask questions because I it gets a little confusing when we start talking about all of the um the terms and the sections. Um our bell schedule, we have two days a week, Monday and Friday, where students will have 80-minute blocks, five minute passing, and then they'll have park connections on Monday and win or what I need time on Fridays. And then three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, students will have a 90-minute box, one 10-minute passing after first period, and then um five minute passings after that. Um so, I know there were some questions about 10-minute passings. We currently run our like we're currently running 10-minute passing times on our finals schedule.

048We've always run 10 minute passings on that. and teachers looked at a bunch of different models and this is what they agreed what they felt met the needs of our students is to have that 10 only one 10-minute passing after that first period and then go to five minute passings after that. Um supervisions then through all of our passing times are provided by teachers, administrators and support staff. So everybody's expected to supervise students during the passing times. Um, the majority of students uh will have four courses daily over the course of the four terms. Uh, there were some exceptions. If you're on an Aday Bday schedule or you're taking a year-long course, you will likely have five courses because you'll you'll be alternating. So you might on a day have um music and then on

049a B day you might have uh your ELA class um just because you're taking uh a year-long course that's an Aday Bday. Uh but no student should have more than four periods per day. Okay. Um at the middle school it's a little confusing. Uh the technical term for our schedule is an eight over two except our students are really having a 10 over two. Um so we are still keeping our AB schedule. Um and students will have five classes a day. Two of those classes will be what we call minis where they're 40 minutes and those are delineated by the periods that just have a single digit. Period 1, period two you can see in sixth grade. And then each student will have three blocked classes and those are delineated by the doubledigit periods really

050creatively called 34 56 78. We really asked if we could change that but because of the way power school which is where we build our schedules is structured we couldn't have we we couldn't do it any differently. We tried uh but that is something that that was one of the boundaries that we had to work within. Um, and we are going to grade level lunches as well. So, a big change from our current schedule, if you're familiar with the middle school schedules right now, we have all of our advisory and all of our lunches happen during fourth period. Um, which is a challenging time of the day because within that two-hour period, we have four transitions every 30 minutes. And so this really is going to help our transitions at the middle school to have

051advisory at the at the start of the day and everyone has advisory at the start of the day. Um and then we have three lunches. So our transitions has reduced dramatically with this um with the black schedule. Um in terms of student programming um the blocked classes that all students will take will be math, science, language arts, social studies, uh design and fied. And then the mini periods are essentially electives. Our our world language offerings will still be um a mini. our music and any um department electives will remain um minis as well. I think I've covered that all. So I think I guess maybe if you have questions, this would be a good time because I feel like I covered everything that I was intending to cover, but maybe I'm missing something. So, >>

052yeah. And just uh for those of you who have never taught in a middle school, transitions are rough in middle school. Like rough. Um so it looks like Susie has a question. Do you have a thought bubble? >> Yes. >> Thank you. This is very confusing. So I have two questions for high school and two questions for middle school. So I know you said you're going to have grade level lunches, but it looks like seven, eight or nine. Is that Yeah. So, we had to do some a little creativity with our our schedule because we share staff between the middle school and the high school. And so, we literally had to sit down in a meeting and say, "Okay, who's going to be teaching where and when?" Um, and so most of our shared staff

053are music and world language that we're sharing between the middle school and high school, which means that those teachers have to teach every grade level, which meant that we had to build a schedule where the teachers could be at the middle school. Our sixth grade um time where they'll have world language and music will be period one and two. And so what we are ending up doing is that um one day seventh grade will have that lunch two schedule and eighth grade will have the lunch three and then they'll flip-flop. So that allows us to have our shared staff teach the seventh grade classes during periods three and four and then go to the high school for seventh grade one day and then they'll teach three and four to 8th grade the next day and

054be able to go to the high school. So, we had to get really creative on how to do this. I know it's not ideal um to have the different lunches for seventh and eighth grade both days, but we had to make a decision around whether it was better for students to have consistency in their lunch period or consistency in their instructional period. Because if we had kept the lunch periods the same, we for the grade levels then eighth grade one day would have had what we call a split class where they would have had to go to period three block three four then go to lunch and then come back to it. And so we opted to keep consistent instructional periods over consistent lunch times. And I did talk to the nurse. I said, I

055understand that some students might need to be, you know, come to the nurse on a regular basis. can we work with this? And she said, "We can work with it." And I said, "All right." So that was my biggest concern around having consistent lunches. So I know it looks a little confusing, but we do have to kind of flip those schedules for seventh and eighth grade to be able to accommodate sharing our staff between the middle school and high school. So >> said it gets real. >> Do staff have um I don't know if it would be within contract or what, but staff has allocated time to get from one building to the next. Correct. Yes. And so that house is probably one of the things that you had to factor in. >> Correct. >>

056So if if you you know in my little tiny district we only have 15 minutes. So you know you have to negotiate that kind of thing too. Susie, do you have another? >> I have. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. That again like impressive figuring this out. Still very confusing. >> Um I have a quick question for the high school. um when they're doing the AP help in win >> like preparing for the test is that like they can go do something or there is a teacher there who will be talking about AP math for 40 minutes every Friday >> yeah all the logistics have not been because students get to kind of choose what supports they need so if there's a significant number of students they're like I need support in this they would get

057to choose to go to that teacher and get support so We're still working through all the logistics of what the AP um and IB support will look like, but they'll have the opportunity every week if they needed to to go and get support or if they need study time with their teacher present to do that. >> So, I was just thinking about the spring and studying for the test. So, that would be just you'll see where what people are. >> Yeah. Yep. >> And then with the shortened time period in the spring because The tests are in the first week of May or so. Um I assume that other districts have done this. Yes. >> Clarify that other districts have figured out how to >> Yep. Every district that we have talked to because we've

058talked to a ton like our teachers talked to them before we created the schedule and before we even decided that we were going to do the 4x4 uh block. And um there's a variety of different um versions, but the recommendation and they said and most schools do just straight up 4x4 and they're totally their kids are totally fine. Yeah. And we've actually had staff um that have uh they were in school and they were in a block and they said it was a 4x4 and they said there was classes were offered and everybody was fine. There was just we'll offer the supports to make sure that all the kids are taken care of. I think this a question you're get a lot for. >> Yes. Yes. Thank you. >> I think I figured out one

059question on which is the lunch schedule for the high school. L means lunch. C means class. Did I get that? >> Yes. >> I know. I mean, I was gonna also give you guys kudos because this feels like when you're in a class and you're like, I'm never going to use math for anything or whatever. I'm never going to have a question like this that I see on the test. Um, I'll never have to do anything like this. And it's very clear that you guys do a lot of like there's a lot of scenarios that you're >> principles do math a lot of math with support though. I would say that this was not I have to give kudos to our teachers um and our staff because we did not create much of this without

060their input and feedback and they really went to work to create what they felt was in the best interest of our students. Um and so kudos to them because they helped us develop all of this. >> You guys just get the fun part of explaining. >> Yes. But uh so one thing one thing that I'm just have a wondering about too is that when I think about the Monday, Friday schedule is that those tend to be holidays, you know, like are they can be but I don't know is that has that been calculated in here too? Yeah, we talked about that and originally I I myself had the exact same question and I uh and we decided that since we're actually doubling the amount of time that we're providing that we would it would even

061out because right now we only have uh one park connection every other week and one win every other week. So, uh I think at this time we're going to there's always time for opportunities for improvement and revision. So, we're going to try it out this year and if we see that there's something we need to adjust, we will do so. >> It just isn't for any number of reasons. >> Correct. >> Holidays and trainings and stuff like that. So, um I think those were my main complicated. I guess it's going to keep kids on their toes might also be a good thing. I was one of those kids that you know in school would sit there and know like class 124 and there okay they can't possibly make us teach another lesson here whatever this

062is going to be one of the things I think you just thank you >> um just two relatively quick things um I also am disappointed that we can't hear from our student school board representatives tonight because I know they were particularly interested in this topic. Um, and so would love to hear at some point from students and also from staff about how they're feeling about this um, change and what possibilities it creates for them. Um, and also what like the concerns or challenges might be. Um, and so I wonder if there was opportunity in your process. I hear you saying teachers were very involved. Um, you know, what was the opportunity to engage student voice in this? So, I just say that and then I just want to say my other thing, this is not

063a question, but I am I will just acknowledge being very confused about everything you just shared. Uh, which is totally fine, but I just think we just a note that we have to be really mindful about our communication about this and about how that's going to go. And so I hope that we can um really make sure that we're engaging students, families, teachers as we're developing our communications related to this. >> I I appreciate I've been thinking as we've been presenting like, okay, what can I like take a note as far as like how to communicate this? I guess you're kind of our, you know, our dry run to see like how do we do here? So if you have suggestions that could be helpful, please send them our way. Um, I'll just speak to

064the student part because at the middle school, um, we did have very vocal students and our student advisory board, they had concerns. So, they put together actually a survey. The students put together a survey and they gave it to the other students and then they analyzed the survey and then we have something we call memo Mondays at the middle school where we do a short like video announcement. So they planned um they addressed all of the student questions and concerns by interviewing staff members about what it was going to be. I can send you some of the memo Monday so that you can see um but they basically took and also they came and presented to our staff to share the results as well and some of their um hopes and dreams but also concerns

065that we then were able to incorporate into professional learning. But the students really took the concerns that students had and found answers to them and then shared the answers like widely um basically like throughout the spring. So we had a chance to really hear what was on the students mind and then they also got to take some leadership and addressing some of the concerns. So I'll I'll I'll send you uh the memo Monday so that you can take a look. And at the high school, we um brought block schedule last year um as we were kind of figuring out uh what direction we were going to go um in and also threaded it through this year with the principal's advisory council. We also have had some discussions um with superintendent Dr. Hines's um superintendent advisory

066council which is all student um students uh and they have similar concerns. Their main concern was the IB and AP support. So we we acknowledge that that was something that was on the minds of students. Um I would also say that students want to be engaged. So they you like if we're looking at the portrait of a learner, they are saying all of the things they want us to meet those needs. Um and so you'll get mixed you'll get mixed reviews, right? Some are apprehensive about going into a block because they're like I don't am is my teacher going to talk to me for an hour and a half? And we're like no no that's not what we're doing here. we're going to engage you and create a learning experience that is um culturally inclusive.

067Um and so that's what all that professional development is intended to do is to really enrich the experience that each of our students is having in the classroom. >> I remember too I was going to say to the high school I remember I think it was principal there were a lot of parents on special and I think you did It's great to see that that's called out here because other people that really understand that and I think one of the things that you said is I think we have to start with special. I think I think that was what you were saying that's a that is a pretty important thing that we have to do and so just appreciate that. Yeah, when we uh develop a schedule, what um director Cox is saying is that

068we always start with our multilingual learners and our students that receive special education services when we develop any schedule so we can make sure that we are creating a continuum of service for all students and then we can easily build around those students. So, um making sure that everybody's needs are getting met and everybody's having um an excellent learning experience. We also start building our schedule around um our special education servicing and ML servicing as well. Then build the rest of the schedule around that. >> And I have to give a shout out to those teachers too because they are very involved in meeting with us to make sure like this is not going to work. This is going to work for our students. Um and multiple meetings with us just to make sure like

069the kids are taken care of >> almost daily right now. >> Yes. I think you already answer my question about music. I appreciate all the work that's gone into this. >> Um I have a very specific question about what happens to small classes at the high school or I also want to echo the comment about the communication as a parent. trying to follow this trying to high school concerns even though I was exact which is exactly what my child is experiencing and her appro not doing it anymore. I don't really see how it fits in. I know there are some that I've already forgotten. >> So, we are working with our music teachers because we eliminated zero hour. Um there were lots of reasons um there were barriers and which was causing it to be

070inequitable um for our whole population to access that particular um like park singers uh chamber orchestra so on. So we are we worked with them and what they had come up with is they would like their park connections to be those students so they would meet with them twice a week because currently I think they're meeting with them for school um for zero hour two I think two times a week. So that would that's what the teachers suggested um and that's what we're going to go with unless there's something in unless something unless we find a constraint that keeps us from doing that. Um, just two things. First, I want to say that my middle schooler explained the middle school block schedule. So, communication check. Um, and then secondly, I just want to point out

071that I know Leo and I have talked about this before that the middle schoolers will now have more gym um 80 minutes every other day more than which is more than our elementary students. And I just want to put that out there that some people in our community might happening in the middle school gym for 80 minutes every other day. So maybe you could talk about you were you told me but maybe you can tell >> Sure. >> So this was actually one of the concerns that the students brought up because um we did have to eliminate our FIAD electives because facilitywise we cannot run black classes and offer all of the electives. So, we've been having some actually really deep conversations with the FIAD department um and around what a 83 minutes is going

072to look like. Um and a big goal of theirs has been like let's have kids up and moving. I that's not realistic. Like so we've talked a lot around like what is that instruction around skills going to be? Um they have really like gone fullon into planning their first unit. they have like created stations of various skills at different um levels of of rigor. And then in terms of the FIAD electives, what they are doing is every other unit they're actually bringing the FIAD elective content that they've been doing into the actual grade level FIAD. And so kids will have an option to choose. Do they want to do strength and conditioning? Would do they want to do competitive sports, rec sports? So there will be a lot of choice that students will get to

073make in middle school FIED that will hopefully help those students are like I don't want this much gym. Actually many of our students do take two periods of gym. Some of them actually they will point out they said I have three gym classes so I'm actually getting less. So, it really runs uh the gamut, but we're really trying to address the needs and the concerns of the students that are like that maybe it's going to feel like too much or it's not going to feel like enough. And of course, we're trying to strike a balance. And um again, we we'll see how it goes. We're open to revision if that's what's necessary. But I I'm going to give a shout out to our FIAD teachers and really being intentionally planful around what that is going

074to look like. um and and keeping the variety of student needs and and levels in mind as they plan. So, I'm gonna because I'm I'm going to break my own rule because we really am trying to be conscious of time, but I do want to point out a couple things that I think are particularly important. Number one, I started my first 10 years of teaching was in a black schedule. If you think this is confusing, the international school that I taught at was a six period day. Some of them were black, some of them were skinnies, and my sixth graders were able to figure it out. So, I have no doubt that this was happen. And I also was an AP teacher. I was I taught AP language and composition under a block schedule. So,

075um those are good conversations to have and there's a lot of support in that community. The first thing I want to um point out is when I did my equity walk at the um at the high school, they're already having conversations about um the depth of knowledge and the zones of engagement. And so the part of um what I think board members should know, I'm speaking as an educator, and I'm going to be on my soap box for just a little bit. If the community is concerned about um engagement and about whether or not students can sit for 83 minutes or whatever it is, teachers are already having that conversation and they're already getting support or at least collaboratively working together to have um conversations about zones of engagement. And you can see that if

076you go on an equity walk, which I highly encourage you to do, particularly at the middle school or at the at the high school. Um the I mean just teaching from speaking from a perspective teachers perspective the reason why my school district went to win is because when we shifted from the block schedule to a period students didn't feel like they were getting enough feedback from their from their teachers. So, um it will be interesting to see how that plays out because under a block schedule, teachers can give way more feedback and um students can act on it more immediately which increases their engagement and it actually increases their their learning. Here's my question about when um and it's more of a comment I suppose. Um, don't don't hate me, Lenanisha, and you can get

077back to me, but how are you going to schedule when? Like, how are teachers I mean, are I'm assuming that teacher or students are not going to be just wherever the heck you want to go, everybody. It's a free-for-all, but there's probably a more system based thing. >> Yeah. So they currently have a very intricate system that they have figured out amongst themselves, but the middle school and the high school just aligned and we um just purchased an add-on to Smart Pass. So now we can schedule ahead of time. So if I need to see you um or I need to provide support or you need support from me, you can schedule it ahead of time. So we'll create around um flex pass. >> Yeah, that's what we did too. And um so for those

078of you who don't know, they the kids will schedule the week before the coming week. And then um there's always adjustments that have to be made if like if somebody's sick and has to make a test, they're like, can I go to your when instead of or your well we call it flex, your flex instead of where I'm supposed to go and then teachers just sort of work it out. Um so that is I am very glad to know that particularly at the middle school. Yes. unstructured time leads to sometimes nefarious activities. Um and uh so I'm happy to hear that. The other thing that I wanted to maybe put in your bonnet was um Dr. Dr. Hines and I actually were talking about this earlier today that there are a lot of students in

079um our community who would like to be involved in an activity or a sport, but they feel hesitant to join because some of the other participants in that sport have been doing it since they were three years old. So, um, in talking with Director Howard, um, that was like in the fall, so I'm not going to put her on the spot, but there are ways to introduce, um, so that kids when they get to high school can participate more. And I think the flag football team is a really good example of that because nobody had participated in that. And so that's partly, I think, why we had so many great numbers to come out. So it would be great to see um that's just a hope that I have for you is that through with

080uh more skills and I remember being a part of that conversation when I was on instructional on DPAC um if it's still called DPACK I have no idea um but it was a part of the discussion is like how do we get more students involved in an activity because when students are involved in activities they feel like they belong to a school community they have more pride in their school and so that would be um that would be great. But I'm glad that you're open to revision because sometimes schedule changes and um principal Paddock is laughing because we've had so many schedule changes at her child's school and I've witnessed it that it can be scary and so revision is always good. Any other questions? Director Anderson, >> I'll make it quick. Um I have

081a comment first. I did have the pleasure of joining Dr. Hines last year for her um advisory group with the students and I encourage you all to check it out. It was um an exhilarating experience seeing the students kind of do the brain work around the block schedule and um some of them coming from different districts and you know what they experienced there versus what they're walking into now. Um, number two, so there were concerns around Soore and the schedule change and some of the programming with Soore, but um, can you speak to tonight um, how the schedule is going to work with the black schedule and the students who meet for Soore during the school day? >> So, there are a variety of clubs or student organizations that currently meet during park connections and

082or wind time. Um, we schedule them in with their advisor that will continue. And so, um, to Chair Mancini's point, we're looking for, and maybe not all of it this year, but we're really looking to expand the inschool opportunities that happen during win for our students that might not be able to stay after school for clubs and activities. And so, SOAR would be is one of those that will continue to be um assigned to their adviser and they will meet twice a week on Mondays and Fridays during park connections and win. So, we're actually doubling the time that they're with their advisor. >> That is pretty standard. Like there's a lot of districts that or a lot of high schools that do that in that way. And it actually increases the clubs and um activities

083that kids can be a part of. Who knew that the most popular club in my school um there's a cheese club and a knitting club and the knitting club is the most popular. So, >> any other questions? There's a lettuce clove in there. >> There's a lettuce. They try different lettucees. >> Oh, do they grow, too? >> Do they grow their own lettuce? Cuz that would be the next level. >> They just eat lettuce. Awesome. Well, thank you so much and we look forward to hearing more. I'm sure you're going to update us again. >> Yes. >> Great. Thank you for being here. Um, all right. Now, we are moving on to our last discussion item, which is right. Nope. our second to the penultimate uh discussion item, the PSI no transportation zone. Director Magnus.

084>> Yes. Good evening, Chair Mancini, Dr. Hines, and members of the board. Um we are here to talk about a um recommended adjustment to the um no transportation zone for park Spanish immersion. Um we are doing this in a public setting. I um my recommendation and my um viewing of the last time we expanded or changed the no transportation zones is the board did not take action on that. So I don't think we're requesting that the board take action. But we've had a discussion about this sort of big change for families in an open study session. So we thought we would reflect that same thing that we did three years ago when we expanded no transportation zones by doing this in a public meeting. Um, we do not believe it requires board action since we

085did not do that last time. Obviously, it's your decision on that. Um, so I'm here with David Hansen who is our um, manager of transportation and um, emergency preparedness and he and the team at ParkAdam have done a lot of the work on this. I we pulled together this presentation together. I'll run through it >> and if David has qu has um things to correct me on, he will do so. So, I'm just going to take you back to fiscal 2023 when we made a $4.8 million um budget reduction. And you might recall that $383,000 of that was expanding the non-transportation zones. And we're really careful about that language. They are not walk zones because we do not expect any parent um to walk or we don't care if they drive, but we just are

086not providing student transportation in those areas. and to remind the board that state law requires that we transport students only beyond two miles. We transport well beyond, you know, well way more than um within those two miles. So, and we continue to do um will continue to do so. Um at the time we made that change in fiscal 2023, Park Spanish Immersion did not have a no transportation zone. It's the only elementary school with a district-wide boundary. So um we were faced with that sort of change at the time and what we wanted to do was create um an alignment with the changes districtwide. We wanted to promote equity across all of the schools and the um technical part of it was that we thought we could improve efficiency and reduce some ride times because

087those are pretty long rides for a district-wide school um for park Spanish immersion. So that's um that that was the thinking at the time. So like why do we revisit it? Like let's not break what's not, you know, broken or whatever that is. So what we are finding now several years into this and now that PSI um has what for six years been in that location where the the former Cedar Manor Elementary School was. Um we know that we added it during uh a budget reduction process. what is happening at that congested corner because it's located between Cedar Lake or at that confluence of Cedar Lake Road 169 and that parkland. There are no homes that it even makes sense if we wanted to have a family walk or if a family chose to walk.

088There's not a really sensible place to walk from and it is a monster to get school buses in there. And we know that that's a that's a location where we've had a lot of challenges with traffic. We've done a lot of things to work on that. Um we've added Carr Rider Pro. Gosh, maybe the first year that PSI opened or maybe the second year, which is a way that um parents um it buzzes the school so that we know which parent is out to send out which student. So, we try to be really really efficient and they are good at it. Over at PSI, um we've tried to change the flow a few times, change the way that we set it up, and we think we've got it moving as best we can and it's

089not great. Cedar Lake Road has also gotten more narrow and congested. >> Um we've also sought advice from the city. So I've I've stood out there with members from um the city uh people that work with traffic and um streets and stuff like that. and one of their biggest pieces of advice were get more kids on the buses. So that that was a it's it's really it's a it's a funny intersection. Oh, here's the polygon now. >> So So what's happening is you have all of St. Louis Park and most of our um students who are attending this site are coming from the south and east and uh that is pushing them down City Lake Road. You do have people connecting from Minnotonka Boulevard going up 169 and getting off right there, but then they're

090stuck at that same light. Um, and that light has been just just the source of so much traffic. It it the cars bend all the way around and go up the street and the buses have trouble getting around them. Other p regular traffic who's just trying to go through there. Um, I guess it's not their time of day. So, uh, the the environmental and street layout factors and where this school is, um, within our district boundary is driving some of this, uh, advice. >> That star is, >> oh, uh, so, so that star represents the next closest bus stop that we service, um, for the school. So, so you you have to go all the way up through that neighborhood and then go on to West Morland, which connects with like where Westwood Hills is.

091Um, and that's that's a midblock stop because there are no intersection all the way across West Morland. So, just just to give you an idea where the next bus stop is in relation to the non-transportation zone. So, oh, and all the the little green dudes on the map are current students that are attending PSI. So that represents the population we're talking about and it's not one for one. Some of them are overlaid. Um and you could expand it and go, "Oh, there's three students layered under here." But anyway, >> and I think as we if we um end up adding this back um into a transportation zone, we'd probably send two routes, one to service that north sort of west part and one to service that south southern part. Is that >> Yeah. Do we

092do we want to move on to the um >> so so digging into the rationale one of the most important things here is that we have these needs >> but we have found out that we can do it at no additional cost to the district. So I've been working with the routers and we've been looking at routes and seeing where they're coming from and seeing what their capacities are and how much time this would add to it. It it really affects two routes and it would just add time. they have the capacity. The um the nature of PSI transportation is that we do serve the entire district with the buses. So, it's it's almost never been a this bus is too full. Some are full depending on where they're going, but it's almost always time.

093Um if you can imagine a family living in the Susan Lingren area in the southeast part of town, you're almost in a dinina. Those students have to be bust all the way to um the northwest part of our own district. And so you have the parents and families are very used to this that hey my bus stop time compared to someone who's going to Susan Lingren I might have to get on the bus 20 minutes earlier in the morning and that can be you know your time starts at the 6 and uh so the what we have found out is that we can make this change without adding routes and barely any time. If we're adding, you know, a handful of bus stops in this zone, it would add six minutes to a route. And

094so that's extremely minimal based on other kinds of routing changes that sometimes do hit us mid year. So, >> um I think you know what we wanted to do is make sure the board had a chance to discuss this. Um we will move forward with our planning. Um but we wanted to have a a sort of public conversation similar to last time. We understand the perception that this might cause which is what drove us to create this non transportation zone in the first place. And once we uncovered this, our conversation was it doesn't make sense for us to hang on to this information that we know we can add routes for these families without adding cost. It made no sense. So perception, it's one of those moments where um it took a little courage beyond

095perception to just say this is the right thing to do for families. Um we also are committed and Park Transportation and David and that crew are committed to reviewing all of the non-transportation zones. We can't uncover a place yet where we can do something similar without cost because the the makeup of those routes are just completely different. high school and middle school routes while districtwide act differently than elementary routes and the three boundary to elementary schools have a much tighter boundary so the buses are full. Um we'd like to have the board think about prioritizing adding back no um reducing no transportation zones again if the budget ever allows for that. Um, but the the team is going to spend the summer really tearing apart routes and looking at that. And if there are places

096where we go, we can't keep doing this because now we know something, we want to come forward and do it right away. And we wanted to do it now so that families aren't spending all summer fretting about um what the fall will bring if we can bring some relief to even that number of families. We have no um preconceived notion that this is going to solve the problems at PSI, but even if it makes some um step toward resolving some of that congestion, I think we need to do all that we can. So, we come into this with our eyes wide open and want to do it publicly so it's not some quiet um secretive thing. We understand the perception issues and we think it's the right thing to do. Uh do we have questions?

097Patrick has a question. >> Did we Thank you, David, for your magic with Park. >> I I gotta give him so much credit. >> Yeah, that's great. Um, and this sounds good. I hate all the cars. Did he provide any feedback, you know, Mot. Um, so, so I've had preliminary conversations with them about the construction stuff over there. Um, actually, yet another thing that Park does for us is they have, um, basically the cell phone number of the foreman on site of any of these projects that are going on. Um, Cedar Lake in Louisiana over there by 169. Um, and they get project updates. Um, and they kind of they do not make it our problem. Um they they are constantly working with the construction sites to figure out, okay, can the buses get in?

098Can they not? Um what kind of workarounds do we have? How much time do we have till you shut that road off or whatever. Um so they've been the main connection. Um especially as it relates to the big buses because, you know, turning radius, uh size, those kinds of things. Um the our smaller buses thankfully can still access some areas that uh we run into construction constraints. So, uh, did that answer the question? Um, >> yeah. >> Okay. >> Not so much a question, but just a comment that, um, back when before I joined the board, I did some stuff with the facility stuff and trying to think through what are some of the options and what we do. I mean, we the recommendation out of the group was to move VSI out of this

099building to see the man because it was available space and you know, kind of cost us or whatever. Um, and people kind of were like, h, but you're moving it out of the central location, you know, so that that's been a challenge and you're kind of moving it over here when we did start times. We, you know, we're conscientious of and I bring that up just to say there's some context there and but we're landmark here. We don't have a lot of facilities space. I don't think we're going to do anything about this, but a board 10 years from now if we're looking at facilities again and golf course property becomes available um or something like that and we can look at other spaces to build something to have some things that then would be

100better built for these kind of needs for lots of us as district things just kind of you know planting that seed that there's probably some things that we need to do facilitywise and and the other things I don't play I I pretend I'm an engineer with my day job and I know that there's just you always have facility issues with um do things like this because of timing, location, existing conditions, property, property rights, things like that. So, all we could probably dream up 8,000 different scenarios for how we could remedy this. Now, they're probably not realistic and probably, you know, things that the city and other people not have tried to look at and tried to see if there's some solutions. But, so just just sharing that, I know that certainly we got to work

101with what we have. So, >> I I concur with you. We we've we've daydreamed about what um a a collector or a full full district elementary site would look like if the buses were coming from equidistant directions are the same. So >> in the middle of that golf course I don't golf and so that's my thought is like put in the middle of that that golf course that is over by by the uh the junior high but I know there's some people who live there and some other things. I'm just you know those here but that those are those are just for people to understand we We don't have places other districts do. Other districts, you know, have farmland or have more available space or space turns over just >> in uh we've engaged with

102I I've been personally engaging with families um over the last few years about this zone and problems that it's um how it's caused families some problems. But we did hear rumors that another private school paved their track and uses it as a parent drop off loop which is hilarious but creative solutions I guess >> just yeah Celia >> so I know there are um thank you again for your work. I know there are families who enjoy taking their kids to school. Have we gotten any feedback from the families inside of the um parameter you showed us on the map that if they if this is a desire to get transportation from us? >> Um yes, of course. It's always one of those scenarios where a family goes and kind of collects opinions from from their

103neighbors and it becomes like a like a representation thing and and we did get told that uh car usage would likely go up or or would likely go down with a change like this. So So we have a yes, we'll utilize the bus. They want to we actually and a very important piece of feedback we've been getting from families is they want their students to have the bus experience. >> So that's that that's part of that's baked into but >> I just want to remind folks that it's 8 o'clock and we still have a budget presentation. >> Awesome. >> If you if you think of anything between now and as we're routing over the summer, just send an email. No, and we appreciate the sensitivity of bringing it forward and having the discussion and um

104being trying to show that we are cleareyed about this discussion. Although um as a parent who has tried to bring her daughter to swim practice in that area, it is definitely not a fun traffic situation. So, we go to swim practice an hour early. That's what it the construction will bleed into the fall, right? This will not be done by school start >> and our next steps will be communicating with families. We were looking over the really complex and robust communication we did when we when we created these um we'll do something like that so families know about this going into the end of the school year and um into the fall. >> Awesome. Thank you so much for your work. >> Okay. And director Magnus, I think you stay. Yes, I see >> for

105our budget um update which if I am remembering correctly, it is getting late past my bedtime, but we're going to be are we voting on this at the at the business meeting. So, these are important conversations. If you have questions, this is a good time to ask them. >> So, our presentation's in two parts. One, we wanted to update the fiscal year 2026 community service fund budget. We did the general fund on May 12th, but as we go into the audit, we want to make sure that the board has um gotten a a better grasp and adopted a a more accurate budget for community service. And then we will be talking about the 2027 budget for all funds. This is the um budget timeline. And there we are at the bottom of the page. You

106know, we've we did a lot of data gathering preparation and now we're deep into an approval process. And the thing um lest folks think that this is such a preuncterary presentation tonight to remind all of those or orange times are the times when we've been formally in front of the board talking about um the buildup to this budget. So we talk about it all year long and there we are in the approval process. So at this at the board meeting on the 23rd, we will be approving these budgets. So, the community ad budget, now we're talking about fiscal year 2026 or the community service fund. In general, revenues are going up by $647,000 and expenditures going up by $491,000. I just want to at this time shout out to um executive director Howard, those of

107you who have paid attention for a while, the community service fund um had a negative balance. The general fund was supporting the community service fund for years and it has been a complete turnaround of that fund financially. Her and their team do a tremendous job financially and programmatically because this doesn't happen without great programs. So I'm speaking on behalf of her great work when I talk about this budget. So um these are the changes. I'm going to move pretty quickly through this. You can just eyeball the big change is an increase in fees and tuitions for um classes. At the time we built this budget last year, we um knew that some changes were happening. I think in particular with kids place and we did had we didn't bake it into the budget knowing that

108this was coming and that there were staffing going to be lined up with it. Now, we know we're bringing in um much more tuition and then the staffing and sort of consulting services costs that come along with that. And ultimately then I wanted to give you a glimpse. Think of a community service fund as a little mini general fund. It's not as many dollars, but it has restrictions and reserves that are almost more complex in some ways than the general fund. So they're running a really monster of a machine for compliance and reporting. So you can see at the top that restricted reserved community education is made up of two things. It's the regular community education fund and the disabilities levy. Those two things make up. So they don't really have an unreserved community education

109fund. It's really a restricted fund for community education. So keep in mind it's restricted because the general fund can't just take it. Um ECFE is another um one of the restricted areas. School readiness, adult basic education, and then there's also three restricted areas that are sort of tangential to community education. Non-public pupil aid. Um the the amount that school districts have to support nonpublic schools. Um by statute runs through community education. The advisory council and community ed staff don't manage that. Josiah and the um team in the business office manage that conversation along with student support services. Um the local collaborative time study which is a group of of um community service um members who monitor time and it's a um grant program. Um we wanted to acknowledge those amounts coming in revenue and expense.

110And then the early childhood screening program has a little bit of state aid. Um either the general fund or the unrestricted community education fund has to cover overages in that cost. And that's normal. You know, these kinds of things are normal for community education programs. But the really good news is look at the bottom line. The fund balance in community ed is growing by a million dollars this year. We had planned for a lot of that, but it's even more um spectacular than we had thought. And we know that community education has big plans as we um hopefully get the community schools grant and we have a lot of things that that we want to plan to do and we have long-term, you know, visions about about that that are really important to hold on

111to. So, the action we will have you take on the 23rd is to adopt a revenue and expenditure budget for community education in those $2 amounts. And then for fiscal year 2027, um this is um just a snapshot across all funds for which we budget. Now, keep in mind that there's a a building construction fund and a trust fund um that we don't we don't try to budget for because it's hard to collapse those into a fiscal year. So, you can see um the general fund revenue budget is going up by $3.3 million next year. Um and you can go on down the line. I will walk you through the details of all of these. Um this is on the expenditure side. And then this is what's happening with fund balances. This is just a

112start and then I'll take you through the details of why this makes sense to us. The general fund in total is declining by $630,000. That is not the unreserved fund balance. That's in some restricted fund balances. And I'll talk to you about that. You can see another increase that we're planning in the community service fund next year and we know that um we're driving down our self self-funded medical and dental just slightly but we know about that and our um insurance committee is working on that. So here's some details. The general fund budget um the $3.3 million in revenue the majority of that is in state aid. Um you can see that $1.3 million of that is general ed aid. That's a combination of that inflationary increase in the formula and our um anticipated enrollment

113increases for next year. Um the compensatory revenue number is going up um just slightly and that aligns with the previous year. So this falls um free and reduced count. So we have not been a loser in any calculation of compensatory aid. So that's been good news for us. There's an increase in the multilingual learner cross subsidy aid. is a very small formula for ML funding and next year is finally the first year. We've been talking about it for a long time. Finally the first year where that cross subsidy aid and all that means is um we spend you know a certain amount on um funding special ed ML there are a couple of those with cross subsidy and here's how much revenue we get. And so what they're doing now in ML is creating a

11425% of that cross subsidy will begin to get funded. It's better than nothing. We're super happy to have $355,000 next year. And special education revenue is um budgeted to go up by $840,000. That's just based on increasing costs of special education. So, while that's good news, it's based on the previous year spending and we get a portion of special ed because there's also a cross subsidy in special ed that we know about. Keep in mind, $2.9 million in revenue. That's the state aid increase. Um, here's the expenditure side. Um, salaries and benefits drive the majority of our spending. So, it's going to drive the majority of our increases. We have some assumptions about um salaries going into next year. Purchase services has some utility costs built in and we've made some major reductions in sort

115of onetime purchase items in the technology levy and in operating capital because there's some thing some new things out of the um legislative session that are have important been important for us. So, these are fund balances and I want you to just notice um a few things here. The unassigned fund balance is flat. So, I just want you to read across on that top line. We um our current budget is that we will end this fiscal year at $6.9 million. You can see there's the revenue, there's the expenses, the ending fund balance is $17,000 higher. That was crucial for us to make sure there's your balanced budget. we have to do the set aside for TRA and PRA. I keep it here um because it's a part of the fund balance calculation. So I just

116don't want anybody to if they tried to do the math on their own, you can see it. So the out of sign fund balance percentage is going from 9.81% to 9.46%. And this is where the math comes in. The only reason because the fund balance number is going up, the only reason that percent is going down is because the denominator changes. And when you have a majority salary and benefits, you just can't run a flat budget. So that's what's happening there. And we are in support of this and are recommending this. I wanted to just continue to be transparent that we collapse the assigned for severance, which we will do during this year-end audit. So we will no longer have an assigned for severance on our fund balance sheets. But I just wanted to leave

117it here for another moment to remind everyone we aren't pretending that we jumped a fund balance up to over 9% at the end of this year by ourselves. And then there's several restricted fund balances and that's where you can see um the decline and the plans that we have for that and I'll talk about that. Um I thought I was going to talk about that but we'll see. So the school nutrition fund um I just want to take you through some details on that. Um a a small um increase. I don't think this is the right presentation, but um I think it's missing a couple of slides, but so um the revenue on the school nutrition fund is going up by $240,000. That's mostly in state aid, and that's really catching up on the calculation

118for state aid um with the the free meal program. So, we're probably going to see a much higher revenue number actually in fiscal year 2026 than we're seeing here. Um, but this is sort of catching up with what we saw two years ago. On the expenditure side, we're really just increasing salaries and benefits for our school nutrition staff and employees. So, really it's a really stable, really strong financial program in um school nutrition. In community ed, um we aren't really making any changes in the community service fund for revenue expenditures. Again, we are um bringing forward the same assumptions around salaries and benefits that we made in the general fund. And the fund balance in community services is going up um in this planned budget. I wanted to just highlight debt service really quickly. um

119the debt service fund um just because it's a fund that's really important and we never talk about it but the in the property tax levy in December the board approved the levy and that's what's been levied for taxes payable in 2026 the revenue is here for um voter approved and other bonds that live in the in the debt service fund and here's the expenses associated with that seems odd that we're spending way less than we levied but we have to levy 105% % of the anticipated principle and interest to build up a cushion for all kinds of things. It's the law. Um so we do that and then fund balance will grow and the state at the department of education makes a calculation. Um and these monies are reserved restricted in debt service are not

120accessible for any other purpose and as the calculation allows the debt service levy is is decreased. So all this money goes back to taxpayers and it just takes time in the calculation. And then just quickly the internal service funds these are our um best estimates of revenue um for premiums. The revenue is just premiums the district part and the employee part that come into the our self-funded medical and dental program and the expenditure parts. Um and so we think that the um fund balances will go be going down in both of those. Um we had a higher than usual increase in premiums this year for um our employees and that's in recognition of some of this and we'll probably continue to see um a little bit higher premium increases as we try to balance out

121this fund. The good news is we have a um sufficient or a significant fund balance. It's not quite high enough. Um, and I think if you know you really talk to a pointy-headed accountant, you you'd like to see it be higher, but here's where we're at. Um, so our plan of action is to approve the fiscal year 2027 budget um on June 23rd. I had added a couple of slides and um to give you a little more detail, but there is a budget book that I'll try to put on the website, but we've created a budget book um that we do every year and that has all of the information um so much detail and backup for all of the changes to the budget. And I just want you to be be aware of that.

122The one thing that I was trying to point out with that state having you look at state aid is that just the rollups on the expenditure side, you know, I just want to make sure that the board has perspective. State aid is going up by nearly $3 million. That is great. It's an inflationary increase we haven't had. We've got student enrollment growing that we haven't had in many years. But as we roll up salaries and benefits, the majority of those two line items are just simply roll up costs because staff um get inflation, you know, get salary schedule improvements and move up steps. So, state aid, even though we are so thankful and I don't want to forget that, for the increases, it does not keep up with the the cost of staff intensive businesses.

123It's a bakedin problem. And the other thing I wanted to point out, I had a slide that I'm sorry about. I'll I'll put something out that you can see. Um, a change in law this year that I I want us to be really thankful about is that we are now able to use our reserve for operating capital to fund utility costs, which would normally fall into this unreserved this unassigned general fund. So what's happened this year is that we were able to move the cost of utilities which is an operating cost down into this restricted fund. And that's where unfortunately we would pay for things like new band instruments, athletic uniforms, um some technology, um you know, you name it, chairs and tables. What we've had to do is go out to those stakeholders and

124say, "I'm sorry, but next year you you get nothing new because this is how we we are attempting to get this budget balanced." We're on this sort of pre precipice financially. This August 11th election is really important to us. It's important to this general fund to get technology funding that can absorb. You heard tonight about the add-on to that smart pass system. the add-ons to technology costs are tremendous. And now we've been given a reprieve to use operating capital to cover um operational costs, which is just what happens to technology. So that technology levy will be really important. The other thing that will be really important is getting those facilities covered because if we do not um get those um boilers covered, we're going to need to continue to repair those boilers at the pace

125of $100,000 or more a year out of that restricted fund. And now it's competing with um operational costs. So I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth by saying dang it, it's caused us problems because now we have choice making at the district level. But for this year, um, that puts us in a good position. So, we have some big decisions to make after that referendum. Um, and I think we are in a position of growing enrollment and that is also going to continue to be really important to us because that's that's driving that revenue number. So, I think it's like a really hopeful place. Um, even though the funding never quite seems adequate, it seems like a door always opens and we can find a little path forward. So, this is

126our path forward this year. So, we'll be back on the 23rd um with a chance for you to vote. And I hope you get a chance to look at that budget book and read through it. We tried to really write down everything. We were saying it's kind of our encyclopedia. I went back three years and got the numbers on that transportation presentation because we keep a record of it. All the details are there. >> Are you going to share that with us? >> Yes. >> Somehow. >> Oh, it's already linked. >> Yeah. >> Where is it linked? Is it >> I can open >> Oh, the draft. Yep. I got it. I see it. >> Cool. >> Oh, there. I just didn't get to that one. So, yeah. So, you you guys have seen it

127before. Um, but you know it has a section for everything and we try to detail out all of the revenues and expenses so you can understand all of our thinking. I think I have surfaced the things that I had hoped to that are different in this budget. Um, we are making some investments in the four period day. We're making investments in special education and we made some major re reorganization at the district office level and drove down costs administratively so that we can help support some of those investments and there is a reserve for elementary um teachers because we hope that enrollment will continue to grow as it has in the past. Colin, >> from my colleagues on the board in particular, if you didn't attend AMSD's last meeting, they did a presentation about the

128health insurance and the state the potential state educators health insurance program that's out there. This is MSBA doing a presentation to ASB. I think it's worth watching for everybody to watch because seems like there's a there could be a strong likelihood that it becomes law next year >> and the my perception is that it could cost us money. So as you were saying as another door opens um this could potentially have a conference. There are some things that they're talking about mitigation, but also knowing the legislature, I don't have much that will last for long. So that's just me getting up and just sharing that, I think it's worthwhile for >> you reminded me that there's also a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that will be really important districts >> um that um

129to expand the >> payout to school districts from the the land in the state of Minnesota. It's a really great program. It will net $200,000 to our district. It will basically double us from 200 $400,000. It's not again going to save the budget, but every little bit makes a difference. It's a really important ballot initiative. >> Thank you. Awesome. Are there um any other questions or comments? I just have a couple things. if I could have board members stay afterwards. We just have to just do a quick check about ParkTacular. Just want to check in with you about that. Um, and then the adult ed graduation is tomorrow at 6 PM. >> Friday. >> Oh, it's Friday at 6 p.m. >> Why? Okay. The invitation that I was sent said tomorrow at 6 PM because

130I put it on my calendar and the district calendar is not >> correct. >> Last Wednesday. Okay. So, I had two different things get sent to me. That's okay. So, the adult ed options graduation is Friday at 7 p.m. >> Eisenhower theater. >> Okay. Oh, at Eisenhower. Did the venue change? Was that I think I'm getting my graduations confused. Okay. Awesome. Anything else? Then they will adjourn at 8:23. Thanks everyone. Do you want me to do this feel