St. Louis Park Schools Schools School Board Study Session 1-13--2026

001I will convene the January 13, 2026 uh study session at whatever time it is. I have no idea. 7:29. Uh here we go. So, we have a couple discussion items on the board. um for the board to consider. And the first one is enrollment and marketing presentation uh from where you are [laughter] superintendent Hines, Chair Mancini, and members of the school board. Thank you for having me here today. This presentation is really just for information only. Um, but I wanted to share some information about some of the steps because last month, uh, Director Magnus had shared some information about some of our enrollment projections and we thought that it would be helpful for you to hear about some of the strategies that we are implementing as we move forward to boost our enrollment and some

002of the steps that have actually helped us increase our enrollment because I'm sure you saw that information from last month. Um, where our enrollment numbers are looking generally very healthy. Um but there are still some opportunities within our capture rate and how we are competing with some of our other public schools within surrounding areas. Um so thinking about how we are really intentionally drawing students and families into our schools. So that's what this this overall presentation is just to share some information to show how we are trying to intentionally build trust with our community, spark some joy around what we offer, how we can have a competitive edge. And I will share that to me one of the best ways that we can do that that I also think is a very cost-effective uh strategy

003is how we build and shape our culture um especially at our school sites and build uh true relationships. So I think you're going to hear a little bit about how our strategy is really focused on the human contact and connection that we are building. Um I know some of you have submitted some questions related to that. Um last year we actually set out on a journey actually amongst all of our district operations and instruction and learning teams that related similarly to the same process that uh our schools implement through our care team process. And I think some of you are familiar with this what this is but it's a researchbased process where you ask a question you gather some information and then it informs your practice of what you are doing. So last year my

004team actually set out um on a question of how do families experience enrollment within St. Louis Park public schools. And the reason that we did this, I don't I'm not sure that people are fully aware of this. Communications was not connected with enrollment until last year, July. That was actually the first time uh enrollment was underneath. Prior to that, enrollment was actually a part of business. Um and this was an intentional shift in order for us to think about and strategize around how we're embedding some of our communication marketing practices within that enrollment experience. Uh so as I uh took on the director role and then thinking about how I was taking on enrollment underneath that was really being intentional about what does that enrollment experience look like? And so my team developed this question

005and developed the research practice that we wanted to set out with which was doing a little bit of intentional surveying and a little bit of secret shopping. And I'll talk a little bit more about that secret chopper because I know that comes up towards the end of this presentation where we actually audited uh just the practice of what the enrollment center was doing because enrollment uh currently operates out of the the room that's right across from the schoolboard meeting room. Uh that space did not exist. So that was also new to us. We had a new space where we were enrolling families in. Prior to that there was offices down the hall which actually is currently my office um where families would go to. it was a little bit disconnected. So, we wanted to build

006a really welcoming space. So, our enrollment associates and our uh district receptionist actually surveyed every family that was having a touch point by phone, by email um asking them some questions about their experience. What it surfaced generally was that we had some really positive experiences from the first touch point within enrollment. um which was somewhat counter to some of the data that I was seeing about the number of or the amount of time it was taking some of our families to enroll um which comes up into some of the work that we're we're continuing to work on. So again generally the feedback was overall very positive on that initial human touch point which is one of the most important because it is your first uh first interaction and that is oftentimes one of the things

007that keeps you connected to the place that you are going. If that first experience is not positive you're more likely to go somewhere else. So it's really important that that touch point is positive. We did hear some feedback about things that we could do better and I did call up a couple families directly and talked deeper into what this looked like uh specifically around this the unique needs of families in sped um and in ML so multil- language uh services where there were some opportunities within our process that we might have some gaps that we're trying to close. So we've been making some intentional touch points on how do we provide more information on some of those specific needs. We also heard generally there were some negative experiences too which is not uh that still

008will happen. So like someone called and they didn't get a phone call back. So that was one of the things that was like okay how are we going to improve our email response? How are we going to improve our phone call response? Um we have gotten that down to a 24hour um which is something that's really important to me. um because we don't want our families to be sitting and waiting for responses back. Uh throughout that process, it informed us on what direction we want to take moving forward. So again, the average person if we receive all of their documents and that's one of the things is sometimes in the enrollment center we are document chasing because we do require birth certificate, we do require immunizations, those things can delay the process. But if we

009receive all of those things, the average time to process a student to get them to their school site is 3 to five days. At secondary, we were noticing that that time was potentially taking longer, upwards of 10 days. Um, particularly because one of the things that also happens is we do require additional information if they've attended a previous school. um those are some of the things that end up taking a little bit more time is we are verifying records so it can impact when the student starts. So that's one thing that we're we're paying close attention to on how we can speed up that process because again the longer it takes the student to get to start school is also an opportunity for them to go look for a different school to attend and potentially

010finish that enrollment process and get started in school faster. So, we do have a need to tighten up our enrollment processing window. Um, but as far as getting people to our doors, we're really thinking about how do we actually go to them. Uh, so we've been really intentional about building some grassroots communication strategies where we've been going to apartments and enrolling people on site. Um, we've also been expanding some of our um, digital marketing tools like using social media advertisements within surrounding area schools, some that might even be attracting our students to them so that we can try and build some better retention. Uh, those are some of the big things that we've been doing at this current moment. And of course, improving that phone call and email time slot has been very important. So,

011okay. Uh, I know I shared a little bit about these pop-up events. Um, within that first semester last year of spring, our team took on seven events where they went out to different departments. This was actually a photo taken from the first um, enrollment event that we had gone to. Um, February 13th, if you look at that date, that's a significant date, partially because it was right before um, our Spanish immersion lottery is run. Um, so we have been making some intentional choices to try and get to uh daycarees especially um other Spanish related uh schoolings and opportunities or where we we perceive there to be higher Latino population so that we can try and boost enrollment or interest around our immersion school. Um I actually enrolled my first student on that day. I had

012never done that before and it was a very joyous thing because I also believe that it's my role to learn all of the roles of my of the individuals who work with me um in case that they are ever out so that I can also serve them too. But this has been a really helpful practice so that we can deepen relationship with community. We bring our principles to those sites on those day of so those families have an opportunity to meet their principal um directly um and we have heard really positive feedback. Now, are we enrolling a large number from those uh events? Not necessarily. But even four or five individuals is significant when you think about how that builds overall and builds trust back into our district. So, from our digital marketing, um we

013have been thinking intentionally about what locations we want to um consider, right? So, we're looking at St. Louis Park as a demographic area, but we're also thinking about what are the ages of people who are having children within our um within our district boundaries slightly outside of our district boundaries. And we're running advertisements that are tailored to those areas and through those interest areas. We can also narrow those interest areas down even further through social media ads. Uh that's what we've done. We're running an ad currently. We started it right around the end of December. These are just the initial analytics of that. So at around the uh 30-day mark, we will be switching that ad just to see. We're testing it out. The ad runs about 15 seconds right now. The hook rate, which

014is about 18%, so hovering right around 20%, is as you're scrolling on your phone, if you stop at the ad and it captures your attention, um, and you pause a little bit, even for a second, that's what the hook rate is. Um, so you want a high hook rate. Again, social media ads, it's hard to grab if people's attention, but if you do get a hook on it, then you're more likely to see that ad again. So, if you're scrolling on like Facebook Marketplace and you see the little square ad and you um it hooked you for 3 seconds, you might go on Instagram, see the same ad, and they're testing to see if you get hooked again um to see if that ad's effective. So, if you ever notice like you're shopping online and

015the advertisement keeps coming up, it's because you've been hooked before and it knows that about you. Um, we set our advertisement to be intentional around conversations. So, our our ad is strategic in that it says, "We want you to message us to start the enrollment process. We've had five conversations started." Um, that doesn't necessarily mean we've had people enroll yet, but it is helping us generate some enrollment conversations. And again, we're going to keep testing out different ads to see what's going to be most effective because as I'm looking at this, the average viewer age is 25 to 34. It's a little bit young to me for what our demographic of our our typical parent is. Um, so I'm going to think about how do we keep making our ads more tailored to the audience

016that we're really trying to reach. And this is just what the ad looks like. Um, in case you're curious, it does have sound to it. So, if it does come up on your feed, um, you could potentially be hooked, right? Um, okay. I want to talk a little bit about our secret shopper program. So, again, when we did our initial care team process, we did a little bit of a tailored secret shopping experience where we had individuals that we knew that I was shoulder tapping, who I knew were going to be completing the enrollment process on the front end to be helping us provide feedback. This is an expanded secret shopper program through the state. So, it's through our Minnesota School Public Relations Association. There are 18 schools that are participating in this. What this

017is happening or what this means is my team is actually going to be going around and completing tours at different schools, completing phone calls, and um completing online enrollment forms at other districts. So, one, they are getting a better sense of what are other districts doing, what are they doing well. And likewise, there are other schools that are going to be secret shopping us, going on tours, completing enrollment processes and um completing our enrollment process here and they will be completing a detailed survey so that we can use that information to inform what does it look like in our district, what does it sound like, what does it feel like. My long-term goal is to create individual school profiles so that we have um highly individualized selling points of all of our schools that still

018in line within our overall district brand and vision. That's the long-term hope. Um because we still want all of our schools to be differentiated, but we still want it to be within one St. Louis park. That's a really important thing. That's like my dream is that every single person comes back and says, "Wow, I had a phenomenal tour at Aquilla. these were such amazing things and they could still say that they had a sa the same experience going to Peter Hobert like that's a really um important experience as people are considering their options for what schools they might attend. Um, but if they go to one school and it's an amazing experience and the other school is less amazing, people can leave uh your district going, "This isn't necessarily the place for me just based

019off of having such nuanced experience within the school system." So, those are just a couple of the things that we are considering as we're doing the Secret Shopper program. Um, I I'm really excited about it. It's starting right now. We have our first tours happening actually over the next couple weeks. Um, and we'll have more information coming from that. So, uh, just a couple other things. Again, I'm being very mindful of our overall communication spending and budget. From previous years, we had put some of our advertising dollars towards things like niche. Um, we've actually reduced some of our spending in some of those areas so that we could do things like our print newsletter that went out and we're seeing a higher return on investment on things that have more of a direct touch point.

020So, we're just making some of those intentional choices, especially on how we are overall advertising, reaching our direct community constituent base, um, and using that that those dollars really effectively. Okay, any questions? and I'll let it Yeah. Sarah >> I think for the recording purposes. Yes. >> Um I thought I think this is great. Thank you for all of that. I'm very excited particularly about um just really the efforts with families when they're exploring our district, reaching out to the enrollment center, really like working on that customer service. I just wanted to point out something I've been hearing from folks um in conversation in community. Some folks don't know, maybe a lot of folks don't know that St. Louis Park School District is one of the few remaining school districts in the state that is

021sort of bound by the city city geography. Um, and I think it's a really big selling point for us here and it really differentiates us from a lot of other districts. Um, so I just point that out as something that has been conversation point with other families. Um, and I think people really feel the community here as a result of that. You can go to a little league game, you can go to the soccer field, you can go hockey or whatever it is that you're into, and you see the same families that are in your schools because it's we are truly a city school district. And so, I just wanted to flag that for you all as you're doing your work. >> Thank you. Yeah, Director Cox, [clears throat] >> I just I think, pardon

022me, um, you mentioned in a previous board meeting for some of our new board members, too, that you're doing website work, too. That will play into this, I believe, too, right? Because we're looking at how we market our school as well and some of that information. You can speak more to that than I can, but I just I appreciate that sort of link too. >> Yes, thank you for saying that. Actually um as a cabinet I did a small little exercise um as we are all preparing to be like we are leaders within enrollment. We are brand ambassadors for the district. Every single person is um when I asked cabinet I said if you were to go anywhere in the world and pick somewhere to eat what would you do? You have to pick one

023place. And the first thing that people do is you go to Google. you type in whatever location you're going to. Like I'm going to Berlin. Um, best restaurants in Berlin. More than more often than not, that's the thing that you're typing in. And then what are the things that you're looking for? Photos, reviews, um, you're looking for a menu for items that you might like. That's the same thing as a school, right? is when you're a parent and you're shopping for what school you might want to send your kids to, you might be thinking about where am I going to buy a house that um my kid will have the most success in. Like I'm looking for best schools in Minnesota, right? So that you can think about where you might be geographically wanting to

024locate yourself. So we want to be thinking about that piece. Your website is one of your most important storytelling tools which is why we have been undergoing this big website redesign project project. Um we had hoped that we were going to be in position to launch the website actually by the time that we got back from uh winter break. We are not quite there yet. It has um a couple little bugs that we're working out. Um and then we simultaneously do need to keep an a website that's operational especially for our ongoing needs. um especially as it is course registration time for our high school and middle school. So we are kind of operating on two websites currently so that we can maintain existing platform for the current need that we're serving as we are

025preparing to make the move to a a much nicer uh better functioning website that will definitely serve more of our marketing needs. Um, former chair Cox had an opportunity to see a preview of what that website looked like and has provided uh some really helpful feedback to make sure that that website is up and functioning in a way that's going to be effective for families. We are currently planning for an April release of that website. Thanks for uh explaining this also well and I'm sorry I didn't ask ahead of time but I'm wondering how you're also approaching the early childhood education the people who are already enrolled in early childhood and ensuring that they are enrolling in our district. >> That is a really great question. Um I there is one piece that I do

026really want to touch on for for all of you as we are preparing um for next year. One of the things that I am hoping to do is update our PSI lottery um policy um that I'm hoping to have for your pol next next policy committee in March to review. That would include some language around um one of our preference categories being um if you've attended one of our early learning programs um as a potential preference option. We've seen that be really successful in our surrounding area schools as an option. Um and it's a feeder, right? Like it gives people incentive to come into our early learning program and stay through the district then. So that's one thing that we're looking at. Um we do partner with our early learning programs and community education so

027that we can have some intentional marketing and promotion around that. This is our actually our first time where we are running um we were able to get some space in our community catalog. It's actually on the back page. There's a little enrollment ad in there. So, we do do our intentional um touch points in that way. We're also helping community ed um as we are doing our new website project. They are going to be moving their web over onto the district website. So, it'll just be a lot more streamlined that way, too, so that things look more consistent and have a better feel that way. So, those are just some of the current things that we are working in tandem on. Director Anderson. >> Um I just wanted to add that I like the idea

028of the secret shopper. I'm really happy to hear that we um joined onto that program. But question um 93% of questions were answered. Do you have um a number of how many questions were asked? >> Yeah. So the the way that that works right is it could be because they are doing it either by email or by phone. uh they were asking those questions and or the families were completing the survey. So I don't have an exact like how many questions they're asking because families might write a response and I've seen some of them. Families might reach out with a uh a slew of questions, right? And then a so it could be like I have all my questions about um what sped stu services will my student receive, who will my teacher be, when

029will that be information come out, when will I find out um it could be all kinds of questions or it could just be like was my application received, right? So the the questions vary. They were just asking the families like did you receive an answer to your question? So I don't have a direct um number of questions that they um that they answered. >> Do you know if there are any common themes? >> Uh there are certainly some common themes. I think generally most of the questions are related to the actual enrollment process like hey could you confirm that this went through or could you right now we're in the se because we're in the season of um Spanish immersion lottery time um a lot of the questions are like verifying that status verifying whether

030or not they will go to their next school of choice or what will happen if they don't get admitted so we're answering those types of questions at this moment and actually I think for the bulk of the year We do spend a lot of time answering questions around that immersion program. Um because we have had uh at this uh within this space made the decision to close open enrollment to um some of our high school grades. We are receiving some of those questions too. >> Any other questions? I just want to thank you because when I first joined the board, it uh the enrollment center was in this very mysterious dark hallway. Do you remember that, Colin? It was like this mysterious dark hallway at the high school that nobody It was not welcoming. Nobody

031could find it. Nobody I was like I didn't even know we had an enrollment center. So, I just really um this is some really fantastic stuff. And as I served on the financial advisory committee for two years, all I heard about was the capture rate, capture rate, capture rate, capture rate. So this feels um as though we are doing um really proactive things to move forward. >> And Chairman Manscini, I realized I forgot to answer one question that I received online from you, which was about um other apartments or places that might be of interest, and this came from you guys. So, if you have places that you'd like us to visit that you think would be beneficial for us to do popup shops, um please just email us those locations because we we make

032those direct connections. So, that question came from Director Williams. So, I just wanted to make sure that got answered. >> Sorry, just one more question. I know you mentioned putting early learning as a preference for PSI. What is the preference order of like or for PSI and where where would you put that in the preferences? >> Yeah, so right now the preferences are not weighted in any way. So it's sibling, staff, native Spanish speaker um and resident are the four criteria in which if you have a preference those would be of consider consideration. So this would just be adding another one but at current moment it's not a weighted process. Awesome. All right. Thank you so much. Um, next we have a presentation from Patricia Magnuson, director of business. You're not gonna stay. You're not

033going to use the clicker. >> I don't know. It's up to you. >> It's up to you. >> But [laughter] that's what happens when you sit next to the teacher. You [laughter] >> have to Oh, there you go. >> So, good evening um chair Oh, there you go. Good evening, Chair Mancini, superintendent Dr. Hines, and members of the board. Tonight, we're going to do a little budget update. There's our um fearless business office team and enrollment or and Mars coordinator. So, um on behalf of all of them and all of our wonderful budget managers, um we're here giving you a quick update tonight. So there's four purposes for the presentation. One is to give you an update about what we're seeing in the current year's budget, so fiscal year 2026. We're going to provide a

034little bit of insight about the conversations we're having with finance advisory committee. They'll be coming um soon with recommendations. We're going to give you a little information about this what the future outlook appears to be for the budget and we have some recommended considerations for board action that we'd like your feedback about. So, first of all, this is our um budget timeline and I don't know if you see the little yellow star is in that first in that second grouping. So, we're through the data gathering process and we're now into really preparing the budget just moving into that process. So here's a little zoom in on where we're at with preparation. So we're here tonight with the board finance advisory committee and budget managers will meet a couple of more times between January and February

035and then FAC will be here in February um to provide some recommendations um and then we'll start to move in through the approval process. So, we're moving on through the the year. Fiscal year 2026, we we will um formally be bringing a midyear budget update recommendation to the board in March um once we've gathered all the data and have continued our work. But I wanted to give you a snapshot into what we're starting to see. And I want to just reiterate that this is all very preliminary and lots of factors could change you. This there continues to be unknowns even in this current year. But as you recall back um in November we provided a update about enrollment and our actual enrollment is ahead of the budget and has continued to be so for the

036year. So that has a lot of impacts in revenue. We've added the staff that we're going to add. So, here's the things we're starting to see in revenue. We are um likely going to recommend a reduction in the budget for property taxes based on what we saw out of the audit results last year. Um abatements and delinquencies are on the rise. And so, we just want to make sure we're um preparing our budget for that that occurrence toward the end of the year. We won't really know all of those results until over the summer, but we want to put a um a cushion in that trap in that property tax budget. State aid between those that increased enrollment, which is um a bit over a hundred um adjusted pupil units once you wait the secondary

037students. Um so that's a little over a million dollars that we anticipate because of the increased enrollment. Um there's a little bit of increased compensatory revenue as well. Um so not all of that is due to enrollment. Um there's a couple of things we're watching and I haven't built into this um these assumptions yet. Special ed enrollment is is questionable. Um the transportation portion or um not enrollment that's doing just fine, special ed revenue is in question. There could be some reductions in transportation. the the um revenue associated with transporting students with special needs and um just with special ed revenue in total that the state allocation. I have not built that thinking into here yet. We're not sure what's going to continue to happen with federal aid. I think that could change um any

038minute. So, we just are never sure about that and haven't built in any assumptions yet. So, we're looking like an increase of about $772,000 in revenue at most. I think the only thing that's going to happen between now and when we come to you in March is that assumption will decline. Um, we're meeting Wednesday with our auditors to start reviewing some of our data and have them really dig through our assumptions um to make sure that we're not missing something. and we have lots of great contacts at the Department of Education that are helping us with state and federal aid um so we can be as clear as possible. Right now on expenditures, we haven't made any um changes. We are waiting for one of our bigger contracts to settle and be approved by the

039board um the teacher contract and then we can really dig in to to see if we've built in enough um capacity for salaries and benefits. But at this moment, it appears to us that we have sufficient budget capacity to to settle our contracts. Um, and you know, we've got our eye on some big cost drivers, um, utilities, substitute, teachers, the same same ones, transportation to try to keep those costs down as much as possible. So, at this moment, I'm not anticipating that there's a big change coming in expenditures. We'll know more as contracts settle and retrop pay gets paid. Um so it appears that we might have a small increase in our anticipated fund balance um when we come to you in March. More to come on that. Um the finance advisory committee has been

040meeting. We had a great meeting in December. Two of our members are here and um I think I think Taylor, Director Williams was there as well. I thought it was a great discussion. We moved through the room and talked in detail about some of the areas. Um I cannot you know preempt what the committee is going to decide on ultimately but we are talking about the the normal areas of recommendation. One of them is fund balance. I am right now um we are living with the the um recommendation from last year that the board did then adopt in budget assumptions that we would hold our fund balance at 8%. Which just means our our savings would be 8% of the expenditures for that year. Um, our board policy is 6%. Um, but the recommendation is

041to hold at eight and and move toward a 16% fund balance. We've looked into some more research on that. I think we're only going we're only feeling stronger about that recommendation. Um, enrollment projections, um, we're using our cohort survival method. Enrollment projections are looking strong. So, um what happened last year into this year um is a strong indicator of next year and our birth rates are a little bit higher and our capture rate is looking strong for kindergarten. So, you'll probably see some positive enrollment projections which will will be helpful. Um you'll have a conversation about class size guidelines. we want to um have a bit more conversation than let's just hold on to the guidelines that we've always had and make sure that we're having a more robust conversation about that. So, that's another

042area that we've been discussing. The formula um it is um not a funding year. The formula is set to go up with the um consumer price index and right now it appears to be set at 2 and a half%. I feel like last year that changed on us. um sometime in the spring, but for now we're going with what was in the levy um materials um that the department um set up, but I think it's in February that they finalize those numbers. So, we'll just be going along with that. There's no anticipation at this time that the legislature will take away that consumer price index formula or that they'll or that the number is going to go up somehow. Um we're looking at fees. I don't think we're going to be recommending increases to fees

043in any way and really just maintaining fees. There's some other things that we are talking about. One of one of them that has surfaced is well let's talk about fund balance but can we also talk about a balanced budget which would in effect keep us from taking any excess fund balance above 8% and using that to balance the budget because as you know once we start overspending revenue it just becomes a snowball and we can't get ourselves out of it without major budget cuts. So there's beginning conversations about that. I wouldn't be surprised if that came along with the recommendations and our continued expenditure monitoring. You're seeing some of that in the board packet. Some of that work um came from our finance advisory committee team. So, we'll we're continuing to talk about that as

044well and might have other nuanced recommendations, but those are the conversations we're having. It's a great committee. We've got a lot of great new members and some of our um old members, our experienced members have stayed with us. So, those have been great conversations. Um, so that's where we're at for those recommendations. That will be coming from finance advisory committee and then the board will take action at that at a later date after we hear from the finance advisory committee to determine if that's the recommendations you want us to build the budget on. We have some other things that we're beginning to think about um as a as a team. We've talked about this at cabinet and in the business office. um some things that if the board is looking for ways that we can

045help keep our budget stabilized, there's a couple of levers that we can can continue to pull. One of them is legislative advocacy. We're all at this table, cabinet and board members, parts of um organizations in the state that are advocating on behalf of school funding. Pay attention to those. And I'm sure you as a board are paying attention to that. But each and every one of us as cabinet members are part of organizations that probably have a legislative platform and often they're very similar and a lot of us spent time down at the capital last year. I do believe it made a difference and if nothing else um help us to hang on to that funding formula the way it is because to have that inflationary increase on the funding formula which is brand new

046um is precarious but it's super important because we're walking into a budget year with some known things. So as much as you can um I think we can we can count on the platforms in our in our groups. But if you have something that is that someone's advocating for that you're wondering about you know call Dr. Hines or me or any one of us on the cabinet. We can help you determine whether that's something that's really helpful for us. The other thing that we are beginning to think about is ways to maximize our operating re our operating revenue. Um there's not a lot we can do. You know, one of them is to increase enrollment. It you know, it just so happened that these two presentations were together tonight because two things you heard from

047um director Suku were executive director Suku were um help enrollment marketing. That's one of the things we can do is increase enrollment. And you can see the impact that has when enrollment continues to exceed projections. Um, and the other one is our continued reliance on technology. And really twofold, our parents and young families expectations that everything we do be automated and and beautiful and ready and that we go out and search for people. And folks are in the market for schools. They don't just wake up and get on the bus that comes to the end of the driveway like my kids did. You know, the market has changed and that requires technology. Um, so here's what we'd like the board to consider. Um, we'd like you to consider increasing the technology levy. It's for and

048it's called the capital projects levy and it provides funding for technology. And I'm going to go through some things about that. But I'm going to go through the history of our tech levy, some comparative district information, some trends in our own internal technology costs, and some future considerations that I might need um executive director Marble and others to weigh in on some of the things we're thinking about. I want to just forewarn you that we aren't going to have a lot of detailed answers to questions because we are just um beginning this conversation and we want the board before we do a whole bunch of work on this. We want to make sure the board even thinks this is something that that we could consider. Here's where we're at with the tech levy um pre203.

049So the the way the technology levy works or a capital projects levy works for most districts is that it's set as a percentage of net tax capacity. So voters approve a tax rate and then within the question it says and it will raise $5 million or you know we give an estimate but knowing that tax capacity can eb and flow. So pre203 the rate was 2.988%. And then in 2013, this is as far back as I went in history there. You know, we could do more research if you need to. In 2013, um we raised an additional about $350,000 to get to 3.812%. And then because it's a 10-year levy, um in 2022, we went out to for approximate increase of $500,000 and the tax rate became 4.287. When you think about tax capacity and

050in the um prior maybe five to seven years, what's been happening with values and home values, when when a levy is attached to a tax rate, the dollar amount goes up. But what's been happening recently is that's been stabilizing and the dollar amount has gotten stable. Um and our entire technology team and many other staff are paid for from the technology levy. So costs of staff go up every year. Um so when so the wisdom of having it aligned with a with a growing tax capacity was really helpful to absorb those increases, but it's been flattening out. So we understand that it's unusual to go back out three years later, >> but there are very few levers we can pull as a um as a school district. And we often get asked from community members,

051what can we do? How can we help? And voting to increase funding um is one of those ways. And so we'd like the board to consider this conversation and give us information about what you would need. This chart's got a lot of data on it. Um so I've got St. Louis Park at the top and then some neighboring districts at the bottom and then in the bright orange it shows the average of all of the districts and our variance from those averages. And I can't even see my own data, but um you can yeah, you can see that our ADM numbers, we are a small school district um in comparison to many of the metro area school districts. And then you can see the actual levy amounts for all of the school districts over over

052a three-year period of time. And then the per student technology levy. Um, I was actually surprised when I ran the data that our per student levy is lower than the average of our neighboring districts. Um, because we're such a small district, oftentimes our per student numbers don't hold up because some technology things you just need because you're a district, how no matter how big or small, you need a website, you need, you know, all some things that have some basic costs. Um, and then I wanted to compare the operating referendum or we wanted to compare the operating referendum as well because that's the other place that we could go to help protect the the general fund. Um, St. Louis Park is and has for many many years been at the cap for operating referendum. So,

053we cannot go back and ask for more. And you can see many metro area districts and most of our neighboring districts are at their cap as well. So, you know, we're we're right in line with our neighboring districts. Um, so I think that's it for that one. Um, on this slide, I wanted to show you what the history has been looking like and what's been happening with technology. So, if I go back to 2021, um, the beginning year here, you can see that's the the technology levy and then the costs. So, we we sort of had a balanced budget and we're adding to a fund balance. And you'll notice when you look at our fund balance, it's um it's required by state law that we reserve technology levy funds. And technology levy funds can only

054be used for technology purposes. And one of the things that many districts have done a strategy to balance the operating budget is to try to find everything in the operating budget and move it into the technology levy so that we can keep our teachers increase salaries for teachers and maintain class sizes and not make budget cuts. So it's been one of the strategies. Additionally, as you all know, the needs for technology have exploded. And then the co 19 um after co 19, it got even more aggressive um because we've learned that we can do things um and our families learned that we can do things um with technology and and the demands have gotten greater and greater. So, we've got two things happening. We're a district that is coming kind of late to the game

055in moving everything out of operating capital and out of the general um unreserved fund balance into the technology levy. So we have been um by design moving everything that we can that's connected to technology into the tech levy. And what we have noticed is a lot of our jobs in the district have become more tech heavy. So sometimes we think about the tech levy as student class, you know, student devices or things that students would take home. That's kind of the easy part. What's really getting heavy are what it takes to run these operations and how much software it takes and how how many devices it takes for us to run this operation. The heat and the lights are technology. Um, you know, everything is run off of a computer. our en our enrollment center

056and our families expect to be able to have really fast responses. Our communica our communications expected to be really quick. Our HR systems have to be more and more online and we're still catching up with technology in this district in so many ways with just the way that we operationalize technology. So I would say our big need for growth is in just supporting our the basic operations of our district. I suspect that there's other needs that continue to grow for students as well. Number one is like we have to replace these things so that they can continue to work so we can serve our kids and our community. So part of what you're seeing as the costs grow is that we're moving as much as we can into technology. And some of it's a phenomena

057of now half of our payroll team all they do is online payroll because this is the first year the year of our Lord 2024 that we have online payroll and people aren't filling out a payroll voucher on paper and signing it. So we had to get a new system and a sta and the staff had to get quickly up to speed. So now we've got a business office person whose job is technology. So now we can move part of that cost into technology. So it's the software itself, but then it's the we we're all changing our work. So the strategy for the general fund budget is that if we increase the technology levy, more and more of the things that we do can be shifted into that additional funding source. and that will help us

058reduce the budget cuts that we have to make in the general fund. And the needs for technology are just exploding. So I suspect that just the stuff and the kinds of staff that we will need to support a growing a district that's growing in its technology needs will also grow. We don't have a recommendation yet about what we might think about, but in until we um get some more direction from the school board. So, you can see that we've been buying down that technology levy fund balance to the tune of a million dollars last year. This current year, we had $4.1 million built into the budget. We will need to increase that significantly, maybe as high as a million dollars as we shift more things out of the general operating fund to make sure we

059can meet this budget this year. The budget was set before we got to the end of the school year last year and had moved all of the items into the tech levy. So here's some of the things I just um we sat in cabinet and we're sort of brainstorming some areas but you you can see a a lot of things there. Others on the team can talk about where you see your needs coming from. I've talked about a few of the areas just in the operational technology, our HVAC systems, our online tools for business enrollment and online payments. We still aren't quite there yet with people being able to pay online. There's so much work we could do there. So, I don't know if others from the team want to talk about what you see

060the future looking like. >> I I just think that one of the things that nobody ever sees, but is the foundation of everything that we do is our infrastructure. So, we own our own fiber optic network throughout the district and anytime [clears throat] anybody puts a shovel in the ground, we have to locate it, right? So, that's a cost. We have u a redundant internet service now with for the first time since we built our new facility, right? So that's costs that keep increasing to make sure that we're stable, that our infrastructure is stable. Um and safety and security can't be understated. the the costs of uh door locks, cameras, card readers, uh you know the um raptor visitor management systems, all these things we haven't done before. And uh before we went to COVID,

061we were not a onetoone district. We came out of COVID and now every student in every classroom has a onetoone device. Um so that is a large cost to carry because these devices basically have a prescribed lifespan. So we have a life cycle for everything that we need to to keep up and continue u um you know so everything is functioning the way that it is. But it I you you can't let it get lost that there's a significant cost in just the infrastructure to run all these things. Um, you know, we're we've gotten so used to everything just being there, right? And wireless access, wireless access, no everywhere we go. Um, so, um, that's just infrastructure is huge. >> I wanted to just emphasize the safety and security this afternoon. and um David Hansen,

062who is our manager of emergency preparedness, and I went to every school site to just because we're um going to be implementing some visitor management, another technology tool, um to just talk about door locks and and this new system and how is it all going to work together and starting to find places where we need card readers to make sure that it's a it's a a flow that works for our staff because we don't have five people at our front offices. We have one or two in some cases so that they can do things remotely from their desk and so that we aren't inconveniencing our visitors as they come to see [clears throat] us. That our technology and and ways that we keep our kids safe also helps us feel like a welcoming environment. And

063not to mention just our own cyber security and the cost of making sure we have tools that keep our online community safe and our our staff and our students private information safe. It costs a lot of money to ensure >> that is one of the areas that we have seen great increases in costs is for for cyber security. Um and uh it's again it's part of our infrastructure. it needs to be there in this day and age. >> I could speak just briefly. I know I just shared a lot about our enrollment uh marketing goals. One of our goals would be to uh help our workflows. Right now, we don't have very many automatic systems. And again, we know that getting a email to families within that 24 hours of them either submitting or starting

064a form, we don't have the ability to do that unless we're doing it manually, right? So, they have to track every person who started an application and manually go in and send an email. There are systems out there that can help us track a little bit better that can even track this person went to an event um so that we can do some more tailored marketing touch points. That's our long-term hope is to be able to take on one of those systems. At this moment, we we are not in that position. Um so we have some of our own technology dreams that would certainly be helpful. Um especially as we consider having something like a workflow tool is certainly um right like you could take on the expense of another person to help with the

065[clears throat] with the work itself. That's an expense, right? or are there technology tools that actually do help us lower some of our expenses even though it's still an expense that you're acrewing. So those are some of the things that we're considering and I would be remiss if I did not mention people. Um I have not added a person in technical support in 12 years in this district yet. We are supporting exponentially more things every day. So as we look at adding systems, we're going to have to look at adding support. Whether that's people within our own own organization or partnering with outside organizations. So in the case of our cyber security costs, we have partnered with an outside organization because we knew that there was no way we were going to be able to

066find that expertise and bring it inhouse. So, we we're partnering with other organizations outside for those services. Um, but uh as we continue to add things, we have to look at how we're going to support those so that they are functional for our people and give us the efficiencies that we're looking for. So here's our next steps on budget things and some of these um ideas or thoughts we have for the board. February FAC presentation. March we'll be asking the board to take action on the midyear budget for 2026 and takes a action to establish the budget assumptions for 27. We're thinking that if we wanted to run an election in August um which is the month we ran it in last time. It's a primary election. So we wouldn't have to run the cost

067of the election on our own. The city would run the election as usual. And then in June, the board would approve the budget. Oh, >> I don't know how to move it back there. >> Okay. Uh, now questions. Dr. Davis, >> thank you for that. Um I have two questions. Um one is related to the legislative advocacy. um you presented at a prior meeting about the per pupil school safety fund amount and I'm wondering if you're aware if there's any legislation being introduced or being prepared that would increase that because I do think that that's a space where there's not going to be much appetite for anything but that could be one >> I am not personally aware I know it's been a conversation But do you know of >> I have not heard anything

068as of yet. Um I think our organization MASA is really identifying their priorities. AMSD is narrowing down their priorities. Um we haven't heard anything from the legislature as to where they're thinking that they would um move in that direction. It was talked about it earlier in September when we had the um unfortunate um shooting at annunciation. So I know it's still a a passion topic for many um where we could [clears throat] use that lever in order to increase um in that capacity, but we just don't know what those parameters will be around those funds. Well, I think it could be for those of us who have relationships with legislators, I think this could be an area. So, I think if you could share out some information specifically about where that sits and what the

069ask could be, that would be very helpful. Um, my second question is related to the tech technology levy. I wanted to get a sense you I know we're not at the cap. What it what is the cap? Like how much space do we have? Is there a cap? I assume there is. >> There is not a cap to my knowledge. Okay. >> Um, and I can verify that, but it's really one of those you we have to be able to make the case for the dollar amount and if it's all related to technology, it doesn't require a reviewing comment. >> Okay. >> So, in our technology levy, as always, which is a process you have to go through the with the department of education if there's a bond issue involved. Okay. But for a a

070tech levy, if it's all related to technology, that review and comment process is not required. >> So I I know you had pos or I think there's a posed question on one of the slides. What would you need to know? >> So for me, I would want to know sort of broken out. Um I'm really supportive of us moving costs out of the general fund into levies where we can. And so I would need to know um maybe more specific details laid out. you were giving us some estimates around what those numbers could look like and what we could justify. I think it would be helpful to know um even if it's above what you would ultimately recommend that we ask for, I would like to know what the actual costs are. Thank you. >>

071Do you Colin? >> I don't when have we started recognizing it's a study session. >> Well, okay, >> Colin. >> All right. Um sort of align with that the way [clears throat] I was under under the understanding that there might need to be some refinement in what's in what is allowable in capital project levies from a legislative perspective. So that would be something to explore with people's legislative connections is just to verify that. I know that there were some questions safety related and whether safety should really be you know in some of these things or you know some things like that. So just something to keep in mind there. And then in terms of the levy, I thought it was really interesting at that that where you had the different schools listed that is that

072um one of our neighboring districts had a substantially significant um levy there um for technology and I'd just be kind of curious what things might be in there um you know and what's different because it's it stands out a lot and not saying that that would be the amount that we would love you for but just curious to to to know a little bit more about what they've justified there and and um get some sense of that. So, but and overall I support again we know that there are a few levers that we can push. This could be one. Um and and percentage- wise it's you know everything has a cost but this is not like we're saying again we're going out for $100 million bond or whatever $100 million you know whatever we're looking

073at making some other increases or make some modest increases. So, and then there's a whole denominator numerator thing. I know that plays into some of these things, too. So, thank you. Thank you for this presentation. >> As as you can imagine, I've talked to my colleagues around the metro west metro area here all the time on a weekly basis. And it's a trend on all the districts like Patricia said is is costs are being moved into their technology levies that were not there before. Um so yeah we one of the one of the movements at the state level last year was looking at since districts are relying who have technology or capital projects levies are relying so heavily on those now for their operations that um there was a movement at the capital last year

074to try to give districts the authority to uh not have to renew these levies every 10 years. Um because you can imagine the impact if it wasn't renewed on our district, right? I mean, we're looking at almost 5 million, you know, $5 million worth of of cost. So, um MASA, I believe, still has that. They're making a push for that again this year to make these operation levies not have to be voter approved every 10 years. Maybe if you have to increase if you're going to increase it, but if you're going to renew and if you're just going to have it in place, right? I guess for me what I would need to know is um how closely are you paying attention to local taxes and what are what are the conversations that we have

075with the city because um and maybe director Suku and Director Magnus those would [snorts] be um that would be my concern because the council did just vote to increase their budget which means that means that my property taxes will be going up. So I I would want to really have a better understanding of um what would be what would we be facing as far as going to the voters and asking for this and what is their um appetite and for more an increase in budget because I think that across the board um as the this is I am not a tax expert. My I feel dumb saying this, but my spouse is the person that really kind of deals with with those. But one of the things that I'm aware of just from the last

076city council meeting is that um local taxes are going up, state taxes are going up because federal funding of services that we like to have are going down. And so the state um the state is finding itself in a position where um we don't want to lose services. folks that moved to Minnesota for these things want to have these things. And so as a result, taxes are going to go up. Um, so I would be I would be I could do the homework myself, but if you happen to know and figure it out, um, and maybe that's a conversation that we have with the with the city, but does anybody at the board table know right now? I mean, I know that they voted um it was a split vote four to three to increase

077the budget. Um, Do we know? >> I mean I I mean I just would offer that I think you you're right. The trend is that we're going to see more cost um you know shift to cities and the other person I'm a county employee counties are also asking for more money and that's because people are saying we still want the services and if the state's not making them available if the f that I just think that's going to be the trend we see. Um what they can do and the levers that they can push when they're doing an 8% levy seems significant. I don't know what this all averages out to, but we're talking about smaller significantly smaller sort of movements. It all adds up. I hear that part, but I still think we're going

078to I think the trend is going to be we're going to continue to see that even with cost cutting that I know that will happen. Um, you know, like that I know that will continue to happen at the county, for example. >> Director Williams, >> I had a couple questions. Um first uh just regarding the the FY2027 budget uh projections. Um I remember coming into this year we had uh you changed the the formula for or we changed the formula for the enrollment projections. Um it was based on I think a seven years or sevenyear scale and then we changed it to was it three so that we could reduce the noise of what we saw in COVID and the pandemic. Um but even despite that we still uh shot past projections which is extremely

079uh awesome. That's great news. Uh is there any and then I think the the idea was we would increase it by a year each year so it could go back to that seven-year. Is there any thought that we would change that or hold on the on the three because of where we landed uh compared to projections? Yeah, I think adding well for one for the heaviest weighted year is going to be the previous year. So that impact of growth into this current year is going to have is going to influence our projection. So they'll already be bumped a little higher because of this impact. Um so adding that four so I suppose we could drop off the fourth year but um to drop off that first year of growth but our idea was to get

080back to a more normalized pattern of seven. Um I well I have two schools of thought that are kind of polar opposites of each other. One is [snorts] the best way to do enrollment projections is to just stick with your formulas. Stick with the trends and if it turns out better you deal with it. If it turns out worse you deal with it. Um and but just because if we start to monkey around in formulas, we can't quite keep track of what it was that happened. But on the other hand, what we saw at the middle school and high school um and even that even at kindergarten was a big outlier this year. And so I want to pay very close attention and I know Dr. Hines does as well, particularly at those secondary levels

081because we can't it's a little bit not easy, but it's a little bit easier to add a fourth grade teacher, but it's almost impossible to add staff effectively at secondary if we exceed enrollment projections like we did this year. So, we want to be pretty cautious about how we staff. So, I think it's two-sided. that's going to probably push our expenditures to be higher while we're damping down our exuberance about revenue. But that's I would handle it in that way in the way we staff >> like hoping for the best. Um >> so those are the conver we are having those conversations act just at the middle school today when I was standing there we were talking about how they're already starting to see enrollment interest at sixth grade and how it seems really active.

082It's a good problem to have. Thank you. Um >> uh I guess the the other question I had was around the technology levy. Um I'm certainly supportive of anything that we can do to protect and preserve our general fund. Um and I and I certainly see this as a student safety issue that is extremely important uh that we continue to support. Um I I'm just curious about um I guess I'm trying to remember correctly. Is it the technology levy or the operating referendum where we can choose to re uh the operating? >> No. >> Oh, that we can choose to re-up one one time without going Oh, the operating. Okay. >> And director Marvel was talking about that proposed legislation so that the technology levy looks the same because as >> us like every other

083district is using it to support the operating cost for our technology program. Um and so my question is is there is there a risk like is it all or nothing if we go to the voters and they vote for some you know if they decide not to >> uh support it do we lose our existing type levy or >> not if we write the question in a way that if it fails we still have seven more years under the current levy >> and then the the last question I had was is there uh a thinking or strategy behind doing it in August rather than in November? number. >> Okay. >> Do you want to share that strategy? >> Well, we Yeah, Director Magnus, maybe I can help with this. So, from a communication standpoint, you're

084going to face a lot more noise in November that you're competing with uh a lot more elections that you're trying to break through the noise. Uh ordinarily, school districts have a better time going out on off election time. So, an August would be better. It's also why we've recommended moving our timeline up to March so that we still also have some time with our constituent base towards the end of the school year to be able to communicate with people so they know that a um that something will be on their ballot in August. >> Perfect. Thank you. >> We did that for the 2022 election. We went to August instead of going in during the midterms because it's be messy presumably. I don't know. >> It'll be noisy. Awesome. Did anybody else have any questions?

085Um, all right. So, we are gonna move into our next um our next board agenda, which is the learning environment. And I am going to say that if um cabinet, you not to sound like a teacher, but you're dismissed. If you feel like you want to leave, if you would like to stay, that's also um you feel welcome to stay. Um So, we're going to talk about the >> uh the learning >> I apologize. I just wanted to um state on the record that I'm going to recuse myself from this conversation um due to my employment and so I will um be leaving and hope you all have a good rest of your evening. >> Thank you. Um just before we get started, I wanted to have a point of information to our audience. Um,

086if you're watching at home or the audience that is here and just maybe even the audience at the table, who knows? Um, it's important to know that open meeting laws require governing boards such as us to conduct all of our business in public. Um, and we do this to ensure transparency and to grow public trust. So, you know, as a board, it can feel um we are a governing body. there's not one individual person on this board that gets to call the shots or make directives. And so, um, what I recognize is that it can feel as though the board is moving slow, that the board is not responsive um to public need. And the the fact of it is is that it is better for our community, it is better for our democracy that

087we have transparent decision- making. And so that is why we have study sessions um so that we can have board members come to the table and express their thoughts and their ideas and the cabinet can share them. So um I just wanted to put that out into the community because there's a lot of people who don't understand open meeting laws and why um we have to make as a governing body. We are a collective body and we have to make our decisions together in community with one another. So that is why um we might not respond quite as fast as people would like us to be, but we want to make sure that we're being responsive and not reactive to what um present circumstances are. So with that, I'm going to let Dr. Hines kick

088her off. >> Thank you, Chair Mancini. Um um we I wanted to h let allow the board to have some conversations centered around our learning environments. um activities that are pushing us to get some feedback from board members as to how do we move forward is um in response to the activities that are happening with our within our community. And in our neighbors experience some very um tragedies from last week that caused Minneapolis public schools to close. Um, and I just want to make sure that we are being responsive to the needs of our community. Um, Minneapolis made that call to close their schools in order to um really assess their true environment and what they were truly truly dealing with at the time. Um, in St. Louis Park, we have received a few um

089requests to go virtual and I just want to share my perspective in the learning environments for our students and I'm really talking really referring to our students that are being their families, those students that are being truly impacted by the activities that are happening within our community, our schools and our classrooms. rooms are the most safest spaces for our students because it gives them a positive distraction from what they are hearing in their homes as their families are having those continual discussions about the the way detentions are happening. me. So that Friday, was it Friday? Yes, it was that Friday, I had an opportunity to be in schools to see for myself how students were. I went to Aquilla because Aquilla has been our location that has been the most activity has been around that

090site. It hasn't nothing has happened in the school on campus but just in the area. And when I went to Aquilla, I saw students being students. They were laughing. They were learning. There were students engaging with each other, checking on each other. How are you doing? Encouraging one another. That's the environment we want our students to be. We want our students to know that when they come to school, they are safe. I was at Aquilla. I went to the middle school. I went to the high school. Where else did I go? Dr. Robinson went to Peter Hobart. Dr. Lafayette was at Susan Lingren. I went to PSI and every site was calm. Every site felt a sense of normaly. And so I h I I do understand and I do empathize with those families who

091are truly stuck and they are they are triggered and they are really in operating in fear that they feel that they cannot leave their homes. So we understand those scenarios and we have things in place in order to help students continue their learning. had a conversation with our PAT leadership today at meet and confer in regards to their perspective and because I wasn't here during CO but I was in Eden Prairie and what I do know is that St. Louis Park had a partnership agreement with Eden Prairie in order to provide online learning for those families who did not want to send their students to school because in Eden Prairie we had a robust online school. That's not the case for us here in St. Louis Park. I checked in with teachers in regards to,

092well, what did you do during that time? And I I heard about the hybrid model that wasn't the best learning environment for students nor teachers to navigate and understanding that right now we are in a temporary stay and as we as I had the conversation with cabinet and we started looking into the learning environments and what are the options. I checked in with Tom when it got when it came to devices and equipment and where are we when it comes to if we needed to move to online learning will we be ready? We do have onetoone devices but the question is do students have the access to the internet at home and what do we need to now purchase in order to provide access for students that may not have those opport have that resource

093at home currently. Then we talk about food because we talk about well, how do what if we what if families need meals? Well, we checked in with MDE and the USDA is not providing reimbursements for for meals if students are learning virtually. So those will be another cost that the district would have to absorb. So we now we have possible devices that we need to purchase. We have meals that we would need to cover. One thing that we are looking at as a option because we have heard from some of our families to see if there's opportunities that buses can come into zones where they currently walk. So we so students can have access to a bus as opposed to walking to school. We are currently looking into that to see if we can add

094a bus stop at in our in our an apartment area where students would need that additional transportational support. So it is not my recommendation that we move to virtual. I believe that we work with the families who um have the true fear of interaction interacting with being caught up in the activities. I will just say that and we are providing them the support until the end of end of the semester as of now. So each site is working on those plans. So if families are asking, well, what what can we do in order to continue the learning? Please reach out to your principles at your school sites in order to set up those plans. But seeing what I have seen even today because I went on another learning walk today and the energy that are

095that is in the space and the the opportunity for our students to be a child. If we can provide that space for them, I think that we should continue to provide that space and opportunity for them. But I will say the if we have to move into or provide learning for students that are not currently comfortable coming into the space. It is a lot of independent learning. Um for secondary they would be accessing their their lessons on schooly. Um it would be the emails back and forth to teachers to ask questions and respond to questions. So that's a lot of independent learning and parents need to understand that's a lift that they're going to have to have on their side in order to support the students in their learning. Now, if community members want to

096um organize tutoring for students at apartment complexes, I think that that is a great opportunity, but our teachers are are maxed out. Um I cannot ask my teachers to give of their time unless they volunteer it. But I I would say that that is a lot for me to ask teachers to take up an additional assignment after school in order to provide tutoring. Um this is this is just a a a very challenging time for us in education. because no one I will I will speak for myself. I never fathom that I would be sitting here having this conversation around this topic as an educator. I was all for fighting the good fight to ensure that each one of our student had the best opportunity to learn at their highest capacity. And now I'm literally

097talking about not just physical safety, but the psychological safety of our students and the decisions that we that we make. We have to own those, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And I will tell you right now, whenever this is over, hopefully sooner than later, we are going to have to have some healing because not only are our students traumatized, but the adults in our system are also traumatized. So, I just ask that um the community, parents, and students allow us some grace as we kind of come down off of this once we can. But right now, everyone is heightened and tensions are very high and we are trying our best to stay calm and centered for our students. But know that our staff are going home [snorts] and sometimes our families are taking

098the the weight of our current roles. Um, I think we can open it up for some questions. I guess uh I would reiterate just having taught in COVID and having a middle schooler in COVID that u distance learning is is not it's not an equal substitute for what is happening in the classroom. And I think anybody that's been paying attention to anything um in the news knows that the loss of learning uh was devastating, but more importantly the loss of community, the loss of sense of identity, the loss of social skills. Um I had a middle schooler and I teach middle school and that's one of the most important times. So I also have a great deal of empathy. Some of the questions that I had going I have kind of two lines of thinking

099here. My first one is um my I had thank you for answering the question about food. That was a question that um access to food because right now students are getting two meals a day when they come to school. Um that was incredibly important to this community. Um the access to internet and the hotspots, I'm assuming that's what you're talking about, Tom, when you when you talk about interact um internet access to home, but also special education. Um, I mean like special education, we made it a prior. I do not remember St. Louis Park at this time because I was in my own drowning in my own pond of um my school district. But special education was really the students that we needed to make sure that we brought back sooner rather than um some

100of our other students. So my I guess my question is is if we decided as a board to go into e-learning days, what is our obligation with special education and how do we even meet those services? Because I don't even I can't I don't have that imagination. >> Thank you, Chair Messini. I I appreciate you, Dr. Hines, uh sharing your sentiments around this topic. um special education is is we we focus on the free appropriate public education, right? And when we look at how our service models are currently this is working for our kids, right? Um I just pulled up just a few pieces about how many cases because I'm big on law and compliance, but I just pulled up cases during the pandemic. how many school districts were told made to pay compensatory services

101and it's roughly 15 in the state of Minnesota. The least was $17,000. Um the most was from my calculation it was $17.2 million. I go back to what our teachers are doing currently and that is the service model in-person learning. It's working. If we if we focus on the free appropriate public education, we know that our students do better when they're in school. For a student receiving speech and lang language pathologist, they would need to structure things in a way where they have to be in person with the kid. for a staff member or OT or occupational therapist, we would need to figure out what's the best plan for them because they're working on fine motors. They're working on severe mental illness, um physical impairment. Um so it means that that child would need to

102be in person. Um I go back to DAPE, it's similar to OT. um that having that fied teacher work with the students with those different skills and then going back to just the 13 categories from EBD all the way to SLD, our service model would mean our teachers would need to go back and amend almost 1,100 IEPs, which means that that's a lot of work. And it wouldn't be just them, it would mean all of us working because that's the work that we signed up for. So it would be a heavy lift. And if there were like things people are concerned about, we do need to remember that they're human beings just like we all are. And that's more work that would be required of them. So I I always think about what about what

103about our kids? What about our ECSE? What about our students transition program? What about our students that are um K12? It's also the service models that our teachers are and our related services are providing. And then the last piece I will mention is the um impact on our nursing. We have students who are being serviced every day, maybe two or three times out of the day, uh receiving health service, whether they're getting medication or a G tube. That's work. And that would be that those are the things that I rest with when I hear about if we needed to do like a co like a e-learning, how would we will we present that to our teachers knowing that due process is it's a monster, right? But now I have to go and amend 2025 IEPs.

104So that not sure how long it'll take, whether it's going to be two or three weeks or two or three months, but this is the work that they're they have to do per IDA, per the law. So I hope I answered your question. [clears throat] >> Do others have some questions? >> I have a question. Um, so I just want to clarify right now that there are we we know we all know there are children who are not going to school and the So I just want to clarify that our schools, our principles are working with those families on an individual basis to ensure that they are getting what they need to be able to continue to attend school or complete their work online. Okay. I just I know there's been a lot of concern

105about that and so I want to clarify that that is something the district is supporting. So, and so I can give you an example. Aquilla has has been the highest um location where we've seen a a large absence. Um what they are utilizing some of their protocols from COVID in order to ensure that students still have an opportunity to learn. Um so they have a plan because it's it's right. it's it's a very high need and immediate for them. Um, but other sites are also creating those plans. We have our our social workers who have been monitoring the attendance and watching the ones that have just been consistently absent over the past couple of days and have been reaching out. So, we have our um attendance protocol when it comes to be at school. So,

106within 3 days, we're reaching out in order to just check in. And so that's how we're knowing that there may be safety concerns in which the students are not coming to school. So that's when it's like, okay, plan B, let's move plan B in place. >> Can Patrick, >> can we share what are the numbers like percentage-wise? I curious. >> So we're currently looking at that data. We did an initial pull, but we also need to um clean the data up a little bit. Um um because we do know that students, we do have some absences that were um communicated early due to vacations. We do have students that are ill. The flu and flu, what's the neuroco? the neuroflu, cocoa, whatever the it's the neurovirus, the flu, >> covid and c and cold that

107is combined one that is going around and so we just have a high case a high number of cases where students are out sick. Um, so we need to really go through our data and have some clean data so we can report out to the board what are we do we have a high number of absences but the why behind the absences we also want to communicate to the board. So I we plan the goal I'm looking at my my R person hit your mic. Yeah. So, um, we've been tracking for the last couple days. We've been disagregating by race. I know Dr. Cooper and I have also been looking I guess I don't have to keep my finger down, right? Um, but we've been tracking and we've been disagregating by race by ML status,

108too. And we have seen a significant dip in our attendance rates. Now, I don't know on a case-byase basis what that's due to, and that's what we're trying to figure out. Um, but yeah, racially predictable data based on I think there's a lot. I mean, like right now, my district is experiencing an incredible amount of kids being out because of illness, >> because of the um I mean, I haven't had a full I haven't had a full classroom since mid November. >> So, those are some of the things. Yep. Director Cox. >> Um [clears throat] well, one of the first things I want to say, um I say this frequently, but safety improvements. I'm glad that our community has supported some general safety improvements for our facilities. Um that was through their generosity and some

109things that we've talked about um Director Marble and other things. So, thank you for that because even if people aren't approaching our facilities, I think that sense of security for our community and for our students to know that when they're in there, they're in um safe places. Um there I I had a couple questions and then I think I and I I have just additional one or two things I might add after that but um I'm wondering um Dr. Hines about online learning options. Can you talk just a little bit more about that because I was I was around when we did that relation with that situation with Eden Prairie. Is that gone now? And also, and I assume part of the benefit of that was that helped with our early ed. And one of

110the things with our high school students is they always have some online learning options that they can choose, but like it's not like a full course day, right? It's it's like individual courses more or less and some other choices there. But if you if you can just explain a little bit more, you know, just offer a little bit more context there, that might be a little bit helpful for me. >> Sure. So, the partnership agreement with Eden Prairie ended that one year. So, it was only a one-year partnership for that online learning. >> Um, the question was, so currently we do have a better setup for our secondary school because teachers have been utilizing Schooly as their learning management system. So, um, posting their teachers have been posting and I'm looking at Molly just so

111she can say yes or no. Um um teachers have been posting their classes and their assignments on through schooly and so students have been accessing their lessons through schooly. So that's a easy >> Yeah. >> shift, right? It's just like students make sure that you're going online and engaging. Um and then students can ask questions and they know how to communicate with their teachers if they get stuck. Elementary is a different story. Um, ele system of communication is Seessaw. >> And, um, I think that that's a different level of engagement because our students haven't like been online in that learning setting for elementary. So, >> yeah. Is there But is there is that program at In Prairie gone or is that an option? They still have they still have a >> there are some options

112that we if we if we saw something like that there would be a cost with that I assume or some agreements and stuff. Everything that we're talking about has cost to it and we were talking earlier about budgets and stuff. I don't mean to just be like can't we just do this because I realize it has a cost but if we if we wanted to explore something like that there would be some potential down the road of that. Hopefully though, hopefully this isn't, you know, semester's long. Hopefully this is, you know, weeks and or days, please, or hours if we can. Um, so I just wanted to just get a little more clarity there. >> Sure. Um uh one other thing and it it's less of a question but it's more of a a reflection

113and that's sort of I keep thinking back to the conference that I went to and um where we talked a little bit about sort of um impact on students and how they manifest their things through behavior and that you were saying we're going to have to have some healing. But I'm just thinking a little bit right now and I'm sure you all are too about how is this going to manifest in current behavior and how are we prepared for that and how are we preparing ourselves for that because students act up in certain ways and we know it's but we know that it's because they didn't get in school in time for the breakfast or they didn't you know they had something happen in their neighborhood that night and some things like that. So it's

114not necessarily that you need to speak to that but it's just something that's on my mind. I know that there are also some organizations out there that are trying to reinforce um the best as we can if there's going to be any activities like this, please stay away from our schools. And and so I just encourage that if people have ways to support that kind of thinking that maybe that's something else that we can do in our community like we don't like that any of this is happening, but if it can be away from our schools, our churches, and some of the more protected places it has always been, um that seems like the the least we could ask of people right now. So those are that's just some questions and comments. >> Sure. So

115in regards to supports from the community, I know that STEPP has been a great partnership in in our in this time. They have offered to um deliver food to homes where um families are fearful of leaving their homes and they're, you know, they're always accepting donations. So if people want to donate food or funds in order to continue to help step in their effort, fulfill the needs that are current that are arising that they didn't expect to have at this moment. That would be awesome. Um and the bird feeder also is a location at the high school where um they can um donate food and resources. Um I'm trying to go back to healing. So one of the things that is remarkable I mean I think in anytime you have major tragedy and trauma there

116once we come out of it there are a lot of good things to come out of it and Dr. Cooper can also speak to this and maybe go a little bit more in depth, but one of the things that I am observing is less behaviors now because students are aware that there is just some weird things happening that are that they've never seen before and they're like whoa let's just pause and let's just we know what we are supposed to do so we are going to follow the rules because We know that the adults have asked please follow the rules so we can keep you safe and they have been complying. Um so I don't Dr. Cooper if you can speak more on what the environments of the schools have been when it comes to

117just how students are showing up. >> Uh absolutely. Uh just once again reiterate thank you uh Dr. Hines, Superintendent Dr. Hines for bringing this conversation forward. Um, and what I've seen inside the schools is absolutely our our children, our students, you can see the excitement of them being there. And like I always say, our schools is like that's like the safest place to be. The other thing too, I just got to give a lot of credit to our community and how our community has stepped up. That's one of the things that you think about when things happen. There's seeds that are planted and right now these seeds that are planted, you know, the fear that may have come up in certain groups, but what is brought together as a community and you see different people

118helping out, supporting each other, um, our families, and you see students just being there for each other and once again having a space for our students and our staff to really connect. So, those are the things that I'm starting to see through all of this right now. It's this one St. most part showing up this community showing up amongst everything that's going on. Another um asset that we have is our social workers and our our our third party partnerships like with relate for mental health they are also on site right so when students come in and they may have a moment we we you we never know the day we never know the time because it things may be fine now and in an hour things could shift um but we have the resources, our

119counselors, our social workers, our therapists available for students that may need to process um after being triggered. Um so, and I I also have to give a O to our ML teachers. They have been that trusted adult, that school official that many of our students are and families are reaching out to. And boy oh boy, our cultural liaison have been phenomenal. And I it's giving me goosebumps just thinking about the weight that they are carrying and in order to be in it so closely but also managing their own emotions and triggers. So, um I I do give a a big shout out and thank you to um our staff because they have really stepped up for our students and our families and trying to fill in the gap when um they just don't know. Have

120>> a question to that point. Um I know some of the schools, individual school PTOs are doing things to support the teachers. Is there anything else we can do to support our teachers? I know that um there are also many teachers who are scared for themselves. Um and so like how can we how can we help them? I would say um my best response to that I hate asking answering that because I hate speaking for other people. And if there is a way that we can um gather that, if we can ask our our assistant superintendent to work with the principles to start gathering that that data and that information from teachers, what are they what do they need? Um I know right now because things are ever evolving and we're just just constantly responding,

121sometimes we forget to eat. So meals are are always um helpful for teachers um if there is opportunities to um those I don't know those massage chairs they really like the massage chairs I don't know it I think that there are several things that we um as a board can think about but I do I like not to be I'm going to be the type A teacher who's been a lifelong camper and girl scout out. I want to get some practical things understanding first before we move on to some of the warmer things in the healing. The first is um for so I have divided into three sections. The first is budget. So will there be um some board action that will be needed to increase budget for transportation, increase staff or whatever safety that

122needs to happen. Um, and if so, will we get those sooner rather than later? Do we give you um because I have a proposal, but go you can address that. >> So, right now um I believe we have a little room because we can move some current >> um line items around um in order to cover >> the cost for now. But if there depending upon how long we have to do this, we may need to come back to the board in order to do this. >> That's why we have a fun balance. Second, um particularly with safety, I would like to um maybe have a more in-depth conversation. So, one of my proposals is having a closed meeting session with the board to get briefed on the safety measures that um that we have.

123and hopefully the community can understand that we don't want to make our safety measures public um and that it's something that we want to make sure that we're having in a closed meeting so that we keep it safe. So that would be um second uh the communication. So I think that there is so I appreciated the communications that I received as a parent from the district helping me to understand what was happening in the buildings and as a parent um who's active in her um parent advisory group. I felt very informed. However, I know that there are community members who are not getting those um district emails. So is there a place on the website that has some of the some of the emails that went out? I'm just thinking that there are some community

124members who are grandparents who have kids in the building, but they don't get the, you know, they don't get the parent communication. So, they don't know, they didn't see some of the communications that we've sent out. So, is that a possibility to Well, we can table it, but it's something that I'm thinking about. And then the This is You're You're absolutely right. This is so gross that I have to say this. This is so gross. Um although I did get together with my teaching colleagues on Saturday and I started teaching in 1998 so I don't know what normal is. Coline was the first year of my teaching. We started having to do active um active shooting drill. So I don't actually know what normal is anymore. But god forbid that there is an incident when

125we pivot to e-learning. What are the expectations? Do you need board direction for expectations to pivot quickly to an e-learning day as Minneapolis did on Thursday and Friday? Um, what do you need from us so that we can support the district? So, so if we need to move to e-learning, um, we have a plan in place. Um, I believe there would need to be a runway in order for us to get everything in place because we really need to we got to do an assessment and inventory to check to see what we need to purchase. How how long would it take to get the things that we would need? >> I'm I guess I'm in more of like a short-term e-learning. Like Minneapolis was just canceled for Thursday and Friday. So I do so do

126I don't know about saying those. I feel bad. I've been on the board for four years but I still don't remember. What do we do for >> Are you talking about like if there's a board action that's needed or anything like that? >> I'm just also curious like I have an e-learning day plan for um and we have guidelines and expectations for snow days. So is it would staff just follow the same protocols for a snow day? >> Yes. >> Okay. That's all I needed to know. And then um the any other questions? I have one other thought. >> Okay. Um so it is it is difficult to um be an educator in this moment and I appreciate uh director Kaufman bringing it up because it is really this is a terrible this is gross.

127This is gross. This is gross. and how to talk to kids. Um, not only how to engage with kids in critical thinking as well as empathy building. Um, but also just to be fearful of your own safety. Um, my best friend's child goes to Roosevelt. I have friends at Roosevelt. I have friends in Rosedale. I have friends in Robbinsdale. And teachers feel this um, we're just it just always feels like we're on this weird front line. And I hate using war metaphors so badly. I just hate it. But it's kind of feels like that's what it is. Um, and one of the um one of the mechanisms that we have as a board, we don't have a lot of mechanisms like we can't we can't prevent things from happening. We can support our staff so

128that they're prepared when something happens, but we can't really do anything. But we do have a mechanism um of a resolution and I did some research. I've been researching this for a while now um because of the horrific comments um that the president of the United States made about our Somali neighbors, about our immigrant students and about our families here in Minnesota in St. Louis Park. And um resolutions don't necessarily have a great deal of teeth. they don't have um we there are resolutions out there that you can put in recommended actions as far as if we need to um that the staff pivots to an e-learning date and have the same kind of preparation. Um I'm just going to use myself as an example. I need to have my assignments posted by 10:00 a.m.

129I need to be available for emails for students, but we also need to think about um what staff come into the building and what staff stay at home. we have to have that conversation. So we can there are resolutions that we can do that have that kind of more direct not directives but um guidelines in but I think we can also um as a board make a strong statement to say that we're standing with our neighbors, we're standing with our families, we're standing with our teachers, we're standing with our students. um the districts um across the metro have been doing this and I just wanted to know what is the board's um appetite for a resolution in which we um make a statement and again it doesn't have a great deal of teeth. It doesn't

130but it does make a statement that we're standing with our with our teachers, with our families, with our community. Um so I'm just putting it out there. There's lots of different models out there. So we would not have to wordsmith this tonight. It would be more um a recommend sort of like a I don't even want to make that word. I don't want because I don't want to be official, but it would just be an ask of our um our superintendent and our cabinet to put together some wordsmithing and I would work with um Vice Chair Anderson and having those conversations. But so I'll just put it out there. What is the appetite for such a resolution and what would you what would be the purpose of the resolution and what might you want to

131to say? >> Yeah, Director Anderson. Okay. So, um for one, I feel like our day-to-day activities kind of already highlight that we support our immigrant families. Um our policies, our mission statement, uh the support that like our community has poured in. But I am pro doing a resolution if that will provide comfort for them. Um, I just want to be mindful of like how much time that's put into for our staff, what we're asking for them to do. If it's if it's not going to soothe our community or do anything to help further, I wouldn't want to waste their time. But if that's a cry from our community that they're not feeling supported or they're not feeling heard, then I I would back that up. Uh yeah, you know, we we spoke a little bit

132about this. Um, and I I acknowledge that uh I mean I want to defer to the board, the rest of the board on this knowing that uh it's an ask of someone's time as vice chair Anderson mentioned and also you know I the blowback from anything like that isn't going to land on me. Um so I I I Right. I I want to say something and and and I do feel like the community, you know, I've seen hundreds, thousands of people in this community who want to help and do things. They want to see that we're doing something. I don't know that words are what they want to see, though. Uh so on that, I do want to thank everyone's efforts. I want to thank Dr. Hines for her comments. Um, but I I'll I

133I'll let's continue the discussion. I'm I'm going to defer. >> Um, I mean, I think it's I think it's uh heart-wrenching that we're even sitting here having having to have this discussion. Um, and I, you know, I I don't think I have I don't have the the um the I don't know what the right answer is uh in this scenario. Um, I think as as elected leaders, we I think we have a a role to play in uh uh I guess essentially documenting the truth of of what our community is experiencing. Um, and uh, you know, showing our our support for our community members. I I it's it's hard to say exactly um how I would like if I support I think it depends on on what we come up with as far as [snorts]

134the the messaging. Um I think if it is something where we're acknowledging the the harm that is taking place and that we as a board uh would you know like it to stop. Um I would be I would be supportive of something like that. I also think it it would uh be ideal to come with with actions. Um I'm not exactly sure what what that is. Um I have I have some thoughts on you know what is the role what is what is our role in in this scenario? Um you know is is our role in you know calling for something like an eviction moratorum or something that you know helps our our community um as they're dealing with I mean just such a a traumatizing event. Um, and I I guess I'm again I'm

135I'm like like uh Director Bulvin, I'm open to to further discussion on this topic. That's kind of where I'm where I'm thinking right now. >> I thought for a minute you said Dr. Cox and I was like, I like that. But I don't I there's way more people here who have uh earned those uh titles. But yes, um you know, one of the things that I was um you know, to Director Baldwin's point, like I think our actions can speak louder than our words oftentimes, but I do want to point out that um we have five resolutions currently on our website that we've done that we've taken time to talk through. One is about combined polling places, which I think we had legally had to do, but there we talk about climate leadership. We talk

136about equity and anti-racism. We talk about IDA funding. We talk about instructional material review. These are things that we as a board have said are important issues for us to stand up and speak to. And to that point, I would lean towards something that says that we're telling a narrative. As we were saying earlier, what does our website say? What does our board say? And some of those things can be powerful things to do even if we aren't taking actions. It's, you know, where does our board sort of fit on this? And so if we can come to some sort of understanding and agreement of you know even to me it's just [snorts] having it in the title whatever it is you know just having something on here that helps tell that story that this

137is an important time for us to stand up and and reassure to people um what we believe. So um so I guess I lean that way but um definitely you know it's actions that I see and the things that I hear and I think those will also tell important stories too. And you know, we we heard about enrollment and I we haven't done deep analysis of this, but I do believe that part of our enrollment and why we see increases is because people know that we are bold, we're courageous, we're supportive, and um and there's appeal to that. And even if we don't pass a resolution on here, I think people will recognize that as well. So those are just some of my thoughts. I guess I would only say that um we obviously are

138are we have seen we're dealing with um like petty um angry people who are taking out like who are vengeful and so I would just caution that whatever language we use because we want to tell a story or have a narrative really does no harm. Um, and I think that is I know we're all mindful of that, but I just want to say it while we're all saying it would be so nice to say this, it would also we also have to know like what we're putting out there is seen by people who I don't I just don't know what attention we want to draw to ourselves. >> Well, I think that speaks to the purpose and the audience. I mean, not to get all like Englishy on you. um having experienced, you know, I

139when I was serving on the human rights commission in um gosh, I so I was I was appointed in 2018 and I was chair in 2020. And if any of you knows what happened in 2020, that was a really messed up time to be chair of the human rights commission. And um we had uh so many conversations to um Susie's point just not wanting to appear performative and making saying things that um particularly because uh the human rights commission for the city really doesn't have any power whatsoever. um and the making a statement from them isn't as going to be as impactful as making a statement from a school board or from a city council. I do want to acknowledge that. And I also appreciate um Director Anderson's uh remind us and I actually printed

140out our mission and um vision statement and that it reminds me that when times of trouble happen, you lean into what you know. you lean into the infrastructure that we've built because as I learned in camping that guaranteed something's going to go something's going to go left when you wanted to go right. Um and so we we're leaning into our values and we're reminding ourselves and we're reminding our community and our students and I think our students I mean I saw the post about Soore today in the in the link. Um, I think our students are really modeling for us how we respond in these moments and they're modeling for our um for our for the adults in the building. Um, I don't I don't have a particular uh game. I don't h I don't

141know in this moment. I know that um I am happy to work on a resolution. I can I've already pulled other cities and looked at other things. But to Sus's point, I don't think that this is standing up. I don't I would not recommend um standing up and making saying like what a terrible person anybody is. It would be more the purpose would be to say we value our immigrant communities. they have made our our school district as special as it is and they have added to our community that we feel we understand the the fear and the pain that families might be going through or teachers might be going through. So I would not recommend making a strong statement about that would be negative. It would be to lift up our community and to

142focus on our students and our community and not not any bullies that might be outside of our community. So I don't know how to come to a consensus on this. I don't know where we are. What? So I mean I think I might recommend that to your point is if you wanted to draft something and circulate that to board members for us to think about and consider it might be valid just to even go through that exercise. Um you know timing like we this would be something we'd vote on. then I don't know if you're looking to do something by the next board meeting or if it matters when we're trying to do something but um you know again I think you know so I just I just am just putting that out there for

143consideration >> the timing is really weird on this right >> because we don't know what >> right what's happen >> unknown so you have no idea what's going to happen >> so that I mean again to that what is the what is the message saying so if it's more you know a simple message just reaffirming our support for our communities and as diverse as they are and maybe even thinking as broadly as that and some some language related to that. Maybe it's it's helpful to think about it that way and that might just be some way to just affirm >> that you know to the positive nature and not get into deep specifics about something specifically that's happening or has happened or whatever that just might make it a little bit more complicated and tough

144for timing. It sounds like you want to form a subcommittee with me to work on a resolution. >> I mean, I am happy to have we can have a really what >> I mean, as you know, I'm supportive and as a communications person, I I do take some of these things seriously, but um and and I do want to work on legislative stuff. So, I'm just going to put a push on that. But, um and I think to that point that, you know, that will be something that I think about from a legislative side and I think our our legislative advocacy organizations are thinking about that as well, too. But um but to your point, I'm always willing to help and contribute. So >> awesome. Well, if there are there any other questions um any

145other thoughts? Well, then I get to adjourn my first meeting at 9:32. >> Sarah said be very careful in the parking.