001I'm assuming they did. Okay. All right. >> I think we're ready. >> We're ready. Okay. Good evening. It is uh 6:31. Um I'm going to call the meeting of the November 25th regular SLP board meeting to order. As you can tell, I am not Cher Cox. I have a lot more hair than he does. He is joining us uh virtually. Um so before we get started, I'll read the land acknowledgement. We are gathered on the land of the Dakota and Ojiway peoples. I ask you to join me in acknowledging the Dakota and Ojiway community, their elders, both past and present, as well as future generations. St. Park Schools also acknowledges it was founded upon the exclusions and erasers of many indigenous peoples, including those on whose land this school district is located. This acknowledgement demonstrates
002a commitment to dismantling the ongoing legacies of colonial power and the district's desire to support the ongoing work of local indigenous communities to thrive in our communities. And with that, we'll do the approval of the agenda. Um, tonight we have public comment, we have a superintendence report, and we get to hear from my favorite people in the world, middle schoolers, uh, some discussion items, a consent agenda, and some policy updates. So, no, what's wrong? >> What's that? >> Oh, and community education is a part of the discussion items. Yes. So, with that, um, it is recommended that the school board approve the agenda for November 25th, 2025 as presented. Do I have a motion? >> So, moved. >> I'll second it because there's not very many of us. All in favor? >> I You have
003to call. >> Oh, call Ro. Um, Director Casey, could you call roll, please? >> All right. Um, Cox, >> I. >> Williams, >> hi. Mancini. I Casey is an I. All approved. Um, so here we go. Now we're at public comment. Do we have any public comment today? >> Okay, come on up. Um, so to support open communications with St. Louis Park Schools, um, we provide the opportunity for public to, uh, address the school board during business meetings. If you wish to speak, please complete the comment form. It's okay if you have it. [laughter] We were a little disorganized today. Um, anyone indicating a desire to speak can come. Um, you are allowed three minutes and director Casey will let you know when you have one 30 seconds and then when >> it won't go
004that long. >> Okay, great. Come on up. >> Uh, well, thank you. This is my uh first meeting I've attended. Uh, my name is David Little and I am a parent of one student who goes to Susan Lingren Elementary and another student who goes to St. Louis Park Middle School. And I wanted to say thank you to whoever wrote the email a week or two ago, uh, letting parents know that you're considering a calendar change to start the week before Labor Day rather than the traditional Tuesday after Labor Day. And I'm sure there's good reasons for that, like it's Labor Day is later next year or something like that. But, uh, as you make that decision, just wanted to have my voice heard that there are times where people are making reservations or family plans
005well even in advance of getting that email. And as long as I've had my kids in school, school's always started after Labor Day. And because of that, family traditions get created. And I think a lot of families sort of count on that. Summers are really short here in Minnesota. And you know, folks going to the state fair or doing volunteering there or having family reunions. It will put certain parents in a tough spot if we move that calendar up a year having to figure out do our kids go to that first week of class which is very important or do we miss out on family traditions. That's all. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you. Um, I invite Principal Kalinowski and her students to come to the podium and as they're transitioning up, I just
006wanted to share that um, I am yielding my time as in the superintendent report for an update from from the middle school. And this information that our students are coming to share is for information only. So, we just want to make sure that the public is learning more about the great things that are happening in our learning spaces. So, I am humbly yielding my time to the middle school. Thank you, Superintendent Hines, and board members. Pleased to be here today to share with you information around the student advisory board, which is in our second year at St. Louis Park Middle School. Um, we were inspired to create a student advisory board actually by our summer interns, youth data analysts that are hired by the district each summer to do research and investigate a topic and
007then recommend um how to make St. Louis Park schools better through the voice of students. And so it was important to me and some of the staff, well all of the staff, but two staff members, Michelle Stark who teaches math and Mia Waldera, our IB coordinator, were like, "Let's get this going. I know you've been talking about it. What will it take to get it going, will help do the leg work." And so they are both unfortunately not able to be here tonight, but I would be remiss without mentioning their role in this. Um, and so they really took that on and we determined who would be part of it by asking each staff person to recommend a student that they felt had good things to say and input to give to the school. Not
008just those that are always hurt in class, but those that might be quiet and but they always have good thoughts or that could you would leaders that they see leadership. So we have divided the student advisory board into two groups. one that meets first semester and the other that meets second semester and then we meet during advisory. So we actually have four groups. First semester, first advisory, first semester last advisory, second semester, so on and so forth. And we begin each session with these three questions. What's going well? Where are opportunities to improve? And what is something that you're curious about? Um we generate those ideas from students and then we look over the students. We bring the general topics to the students and then they come to consensus around a topic to explore and
009take action around and I have invited two of our members to come and speak more around what actions they have taken. So I'm going to invite Abe to come to the microphone first. Hello, my name is Abraham and I am a student at the St. Louis Park Middle School. I am here to share how we switched from paper agendas to the schooly calendar for keeping track of assignment dates and homework. First, I would like to app I would like to acknowledge and appreciate how studentled the whole student advisory board was and how much we got to make the decisions and influence where our effort was going. So we started by talking about like a wide range of ideas and narrowed it down to one or two, one of those being the paper agenda and then
010began to create an action plan. So first we looked into like how much paper are we using, how much ink are we using and is it worth the labor to get this out to the students and get these to all the advisory teachers. So we looked in and we found waste. So, we were like, "What can we do to fix this?" And I had been on Schooly and seen the calendar and been like, "It's kind of empty. Like, there's nothing here. Why aren't we utilizing this resource?" So, um, me and another student researched it and looked into it like what are the functionalities, what can teachers edit, and what can students edit? And we decided that it would be a good fit. So we presented to the other student advisory board members um and they
011liked it. So as a student advisory board we created a video on like to show to the advisories like just the basic things so teachers didn't have to do it and then in advisory they just like did a little activity with color coding their schedules. Um yeah along yeah so students appreciated it. We stopped wasting paper and ink, so we saved a lot of money. And personally, it felt good to make a change that everybody in the school experienced and made everybody's daily life better. Thank you. >> Hello, my name is Ezra Martinson Haw and I'm in seventh grade at St. Louis Park Middle School. I'm here to talk about snack bar recommendations from last spring and our work to support student mental health this fall. Students were talking about how the lines for snack
012bar were long. Students were begging for other students to buy them treats. Some students were buying a lot of snacks, leaving others with not enough time to buy. We met with nutrition services to learn more about the snack bar. We learned that there are different rules for what snacks can be sold to different age groups. We made suggestions on what snacks should be sold. We suggested rules that students needed to be in line, that students should be limited to how many snacks they could buy, and that they could only buy for themselves. Our recommendations were put into place this fall when the snack bar was opened. This fall, our student advisory board decided that we wanted to focus on student mental health. We're still getting started on this topic, but we want to focus on
013helping students keep their self-esteem, being kind to one another, and not using harmful language. I am also hoping that we can work with the student to address how to use words appropriately and how students can get help if they need it. Thank you. Hello. Um, so my name is Kellen O'Brien and I am the youth enrichment manager with community ed and we have a student leadership group called YDC, youth development committee and we realized that the student advisory board SAB and YDC have very similar goals and YEP YDC is we're housed at the middle school. So, we're like, we should be joining forces here. Like, why aren't we partnering? So, um Michelle, Mia, and Melissa um came to the YEP team and said, do you guys want to partner with us um with SAB? Um
014and we were like, absolutely. This is an incredible experience to or a time to partner together to show how important student voice is in all district programming in the classroom, out of school time. So we are planning to do out of school time leadership trainings with the YDC group using what SAB um is setting for their expectations what they want to do. Um and we're planning to start after school weekly meetings in January and to do some leadership seminars for the students at SAB who want to have more time because advisory is super short during the school day. So it's like why don't we use the afterchool time to do more leadership training. So we just started that um and we're that's kind of our our next steps in our partnership. So >> yes, thank
015you. >> We will happily take questions. >> I just want to thank Abraham and Ezra for being here tonight. I know it's sometimes hard to come and like stand in front of a bunch of people, but you guys and this is the first time in our new room that we've had students. So, um you guys did awesome and I'm so super glad that you were here to help us um break in our new room and our new podium and um thanks for the great work. I'm really impressed by like the multiple layers of problem solving that you that you talked about in all these different initiatives and um taking action and then communicating your actions like this is, you know, a whole taking a project from like start to finish is what we're seeing. So,
016this is amazing work and we're really glad you came to tell us about it. I would just like to add on to that I am also very impressed. I don't think people understand how special St. Louis Park is that we're actualizing our strategic plan in so many amazing ways and I don't think people realize how special middle schoolers are. Um, so thank you so much for coming. And I just uh I really love hearing student voice and I love the problem solving as well. I think that's very impressive because it means and I know that adults will tell you this. Um but it means more when it comes from you than when it comes from us. So thank you very much. >> Great. Any Colin, any questions? >> Yeah. No, I mean I would I
017would just echo people's thoughts and like we said something like as people were talking about problem solving and you know I do think about that snack bar thing. some real nice like I mean I like the paper one too but I was just thinking about the snacking kind of thing and just how tricky that can be and just working through that process and I'm really impressed um and really glad to see that. I'm also glad to see students uh you know coming in on a on a school night or whatever on a uh so great to see them there today too. Appreciate it. >> Thank you. And now we have our discussion items. So I'm going to invite community ed and executive director of community education Patrice Howard and company >> and company >> or
018just Patrice >> everybody everybody gets to come up. >> So as community ed is transitioning to the program to the podium. I just want to just share that the presentation that community ed is sharing today is for public information only. So, we want to inform our public of the great adult programs that we offer through community education so that our public um at large can take advantage of these great opportunities. So, I turn it over to um Executive Director Howard. >> Good evening, um Chair Cox, uh Superintendent Dr. Hines, members of the board. Uh again, I'm Patrice Howard. Well, well, Chair Cox is right there, so I didn't want to Okay, for both of you all remember, >> okay, I just didn't want to offend the virtual guest. >> She's got the gabble. She's got
019the gabble, so she's the chair. [laughter] >> Okay. See, um, we're here today and again, I'm Patrice Howard, executive director of community education. And as you all know, throughout the school year, we will we have the opportunity of coming to share uh more information and reintroduce or introduce community education programming across the district. Um, and today again, as Dr. Hind said that we are here to share programming around community ed excuse me around adult programming. So I am joined here by three of our members of uh community education programming and I will let them or I stand out of the way so that they can introduce their program as well as their connection uh to community education. >> Thank you. All right. So, my name is Katie and I am the adult programs manager uh
020for community education housed at Lennox Community Center and um I oversee the senior program adult enrichment and the district volunteer program which I'll be talking about today. Um on our first slide, I'm going to highlight our senior program and a few things here. Uh the St. Louis Park senior program is based at Lennox Community Center and it is a partnership with the city of St. Louis Park and we serve anybody that is over the age of 50. Um we have hundreds of people who come into our building every month every year and over 350 of those seniors um have chosen to be senior program members which means that they pay a yearly fee and in return they get some discounts on classes and they also get um our newscaster which is our senior catalog mailed
021to them three times a year. Um we are my team and I are so excited um about the expansion of partnerships over the last year. Um we have identified 22 new partners um that are here to support that come to Lennox to support our senior program. Um our spotlight for the night that we wanted to share is our partnership with senior community services. Um that partnership is around technology support. So over the last year we have had um 117 one-on-one tech help appointments um which seniors can come in and bring their device and get one-on-one help. Um we've also had eight technology lectures that they have provided which um has been uh super informal or um I'm sorry informational um and we're just very excited about the senior community services partnership. Um over the last
022year we have had a significant increase in attendance at Lenox. So, I have um highlighted just some fun data points that have shown this, but what I wanted to highlight was the senior speed friendship um uh event that we hosted last month and it was our first time offering it and it was really a time for seniors to come together and meet new friends and we're excited that um a couple of friendships have formed out of that. So, uh we have a group of people who come to Lennox to play pingpong um on a weekly basis um and there's another group that meets for coffee offsite. So um it's a success [clears throat] and we will continue offering the senior speed friendship. Um on the right hand column we also um have included just some
023of the highlights from the past year um for programming. The one that I want to highlight specifically today is the 100year celebration of Lenox. Uh we had a great time with our um kickoff event and for celebrating the uh during the whole week. Um a special thank you to all of you who were able to come. um our cabinet members who were able to come as well. And a special thank you to uh Director Casey for um helping plan that and for Chair Cox um who gave our welcome. Um I also oversee adult enrichment uh with my team. We coordinate uh programming for anybody who is 18 and older. All are welcome. Uh we continue to prioritize programming for the 25 to 49 year olds. We know there's a lot of things that are on
024the plates um of those that are in that age range. Um and socializing, engaging in lifelong learning should be one of them as well. We are excited that we have um added 165 new adult enrichment classes since last year. And I have some highlights of the different classes um that are up there along with the fun pictures. Um next is the district volunteer program. So, the mission of the district volunteer program is really to bring the community excellence into our schools to support our students, our staff, and our teachers um and our sites. And so, last year we rounded out the school year with about 190 volunteers. And from July 1 to present day, November 25th, we have over 700 volunteers now. Um and it is just another commitment that our community um and our
025parents they are wanting to get into the schools and they are wanting to to support. Um here are a couple of highlights that we had. Um the one that I want to highlight in this presentation is our strength how we strengthen the safety of our schools by ensuring all adults who volunteer among students are properly vetted through our application process and we will continue doing that moving forward. My final slide is just a reminder that all of these programs happen at Lennox Community Center. We are a little different than all the other school sites. We are multi-purpose building. Um so not only do we have community education programming um in our building every single day, we also have the St. Louis Park Public Schools um two programs there. We also have community programs, partnerships and
026tenants that make us um just a fun uh and great building to be at. So if you haven't been lately, we invite you over um and we'll give you a tour. Thank you. Hi everybody. Thanks for having me today. Um, I am Lindsay Richens and I am the program manager of Project SOAR and I have the best job. Sorry everybody, but I love to talk about it and they like to bring me along because I'm very animated. So, um, what Project SOAR is, if you guys don't know, is that we are programming specifically for, uh, individuals who are 18 and older that have special needs or a disability. Um, anybody at any age and ability can come as long as they're over 18, we welcome them. Um, we are a consortium of St. Louis Park,
027Hopkins, Minnetonka, NY Zetta. And we are so grateful because Lennox actually is where we do about 50% of our programming. So, um, it's always fun to come and, uh, be supportive of Lennox as well. Um, we offer, uh, just about the same as community ed. We are, we have our own catalog. We do three a year. We do program all year and uh we offer everything from lifelong learning classes to fitness and we even have two performing uh groups. We have a stars of the stage which is an acting group and our sore songirds which is our choir. Um so it's really fun. Um you guys are always welcome to come to any class that you would like. We have our website projects soremen.org or you can contact me and I can give it to
028you. Um, and these are some highlights of different individuals. I love pictures, so get them all in. Um, to talk about a little bit of 2024 2025 and give a little bit of background. Um, we are funded about 60% of our funding comes from MDE through a levy. Um, we received funding in 1987 and it did not change until this last 2024 2025 fiscal year. we were receiving the same funding for that amount of time and thankfully they did open it up and also made it possible for all districts to have adults with disability programs through community ed um and through the school districts. Um so we were really grateful for that because it allows us to provide more and um give more to our participants and make our program the best it can be
029um for their experience. Um in 2024 2025 we served 417 uh individuals. Um and we had 180 courses that we offered. We held 173 of them. So we do get really good attendance thankfully and um a lot of people I think it averages um if all 417 people came to multiple classes it was like almost nine per person. So um we do love that we get to see them come often. Um, some of our highlights is that we our songbirds choir which has now grown. We have 38 people in it right now. Um, but in the summer we were able to sing the national anthem at the St. Paul Saints game. Um, and so that was really fun. Um, we also have three other performances that they do with our acting group. Our next one
030is uh December 11th at 7 o'clock at Eisenhower. It's $5 a seat. You guys welcome to come. It's probably the best uh performance you'll ever see. It just makes you happy. So, um, we're doing it's Y2K experience, all 90s and 2000s. Um, we have a really great new program with the Henipin County Sheriff's Department, which I appreciate. I was connected through the Lennox Senior Resource Fair. I came, we got connected, and now they're doing classes for us. So, it's really great to always be included in everything in the St. Louis Park Community Ed. Um, they are so gracious to let me come into whatever they're doing. Um, but now we're doing safety talks. We did a uh we did a general emergency talk and we're going to be doing biking and walking safe safety in
031the spring with them and they've also now come and helped to volunteer at other classes with us. Um we do cooking classes, dances, bingo and bowling. Those are very high attended um classes. Um as well as our naturalist nights at Westwood Hills Nature Center. We started that in 2020 uh March of 2021. uh and we have been going strong since and so we really appreciate our partnership with them. Um and our biggest thing is we want to see meaningful connections. We want them to grow community within our program. Um and then we also want to be uh part of showing inclusion and helping people understand inclusion within the community and uh we really feel like we uh work really hard with our connections especially here in St. Louis Park to make that happen. So appreciate
032that. Thank you for your time. Lindsay and good evening. My name is Chelsea Ridland and I get to close out our adult programming this evening talking about our adult education program. I'm the assistant director for adult options in education which similar to project soar enjoys being in a consortium with St. Louis Park Hopkins Minnotonka and Noisetta schools. Um, this is a free adult English language and GED program um, for adult learners in our community. We have open enrollment throughout the year and you don't need to be a resident in one of those school districts to attend. We help um, folks navigate towards an adult literacy program that works best for them where they might work or live. Um, and we have a lot of we keep options true to our name. Truly, we're finding that
033out more and more in adult options and education. So, learners can attend in person. They can attend online or they can attend a class that's high flex where our very skilled instructors are teaching to adult learners that are present with them in the classroom and folks that are joining online via Google meet who might have wished to be there that day but have a child sick at home. So, they can join the Google meet and come that way. Um, so a list of things in general that um, adult learners come to us for, English language classes, um, GED classes. We have an annual GED graduation which members of this board often um, join us for and our superintendent as well, which we greatly appreciate as a celebration of our adult learners. Um, we have a
034college and career counselor. Um, there's some pictures here of a recent college fair that um, students from St. Louisis Park attended at our Hopkins location um and can receive one-on-one counseling um for next steps transitioning to college and career computer skills classes. Um, we offer onsite workplace English classes. Um, current partnership with Methodist Park Nicollet Hospital where we offer English language classes to their employees as part of their workday. And several of those um, the staff members there are also coming to English classes with us here or have been in English classes with us in the past. Um, and then some um, pictures there with our police department and our fire department in St. Louis Park where they come here on site. Our classes at St. Louis Park are here in Central Community Center on
035the second floor and they talk about um safety and building those relationships in the community between um uh New Americans and um the police department. Um, so we hope that our students feel this um, every day when they're learning with us online or in person, striving to create a learning environment that's welcoming, safe, and peaceful. Um, we are committed to show social change, inclusivity, and anti-rac racism, in our curricula, and how we show up every day and work with our adult learners. Um, and we're always aiming to build a culture of high expectations for ourselves as staff members and for the learners um that we're working with. So, we're truly seeking to create a school where learners are seen, heard, and thrive. Um, and one way to look at that is data. And then another
036way to look at that is um an anecdotal story. So, I'm going to end by sharing both. Um, and uh we are really proud to be a top ranking adult education program in the state. Um so there our our data compared to the state average is shown here on the screen. So we rank number six and eighth um or sorry sixth and fourth for our adult learners and English language learners in terms of making measurable skill gains. So our learners improving throughout the year towards their goal in English language skills. Um, so we rank very highly in those measures and also um just in retention and students persisting and continuing to show up with which I think speaks really highly to the community building um and the quality of education that um people are receiving
037with our amazing teachers at adult options. So we're really proud to share out a couple of those highlights from a state report card. There's 32 consorcia in the state and we are consistently among the top 10 in those measures. But also um how else can we look at what is the experience like for students? And just sharing some pictures here of um students getting together outside of class time and the real deep relationship building and community building that happens. Doing some ice skating. For some it was first ice skating experience ever. celebrating new babies coming in um to the community together. Um and also just feeling really confident. This is an example that a student suggested and was um really glad to share with everyone this evening that um the confidence in getting to um
038do something that didn't feel so easy before um in emailing a facility manager in our district or in our community and asking to reserve a field to get together with other community members. um and letting them know that they're an adult option student and then that that means something. So that's really nice to see. Um overall um we're getting a lot of questions right now on how enrollment is um given the political climate. Um what is happening? Our contact hours around the state are actually increased this time compared to last year and adult options were up 11% overall. Um so we're still seeing learners coming to learn with us. our registration is starting to dip and we're just keeping an eye on that. Um and we know that um federal funding is currently zeroed out
039next year for adult education um which is 12% of our budget. So we that's not in insignificant but we're really grateful that a large percentage of our budget is state funded and that we will continue to be here and adults.org is our website for people to enroll throughout the year. So, thank you >> for that. Thank you. And winter registration opens on December 1st. Please check out our website. Thank you. Have a good evening. >> Thank you so much for coming. Awesome. Uh so, next I believe is the we have an update from Patricia Magnus on enrollment and budget update. So, as Patricia is transitioning to the podium, I will just tee it up that Patricia is here to share information um with the board. Um this information will be used and can be used
040at a late at a future date in order to make decisions around budgeting. So, executive director Magnus. >> Thank you, Superintendent Hines. Um good evening, uh Vice Chair Mancini and members of the board. Yes, indeed. I'm going to give an update on the enrollment and budget. This is you can see our beautiful business office team there. I wanted to just show them off a little bit. Um so the purpose is really twofold. One, we're going to look back because we are almost done um with our enrollment and and reporting for last year. Um so I'm going to refer to it as Mars. It's the Minnesota um automated reporting student system. It's the official reporting system. So we're almost done with last year. So, I want to report what we're seeing there and give you some
041initial um reflections on what we're seeing for enrollment this fall. So, we're moving down our budget timeline and this is a significant part of our data preparation as we build budgets and into the future. The big story for enrollment this fall is that we're up from um both trends and projections. It appears that our trends and are changing. there seems to be a break in the patterns. First of all, I want you to to see that enrollment is actually up from last year by 2% or 86 or um 108 students 2.1 2.51% from last year. And we're also up 86 students from projections. So that tells you two things. One is we're actually growing and we're growing more than we thought we would. So, um, there's already trends baked into our projections of growth or
042decline, and so we're beating both of those patterns. So, something is changing. This shows you just where our students are sitting this fall so far by site and by grade level. So, we're at 4,412. This is the first time in four years we've been above 4,400 students. So, it's very good news and it's significant change. This next slide breaks down our current student body by sight and grade level versus projection. So, where we thought we would be versus where we are now. And the most important thing um for us in patterning is to look at those grade level changes. So, you can see that we're up 24 students at kindergarten, an entire section at kindergarten this fall. As we break into middle school, we're up 29 students from projection. So we would have already factored
043in a growth at that grade span break, but this is even more than we had expected. And also at 9th grade, we're used to an increase in enrollment as students enter senior high. The pattern is shifting up even higher. So all told, 86 students above what we had projected across nearly every school and nearly every grade level. I want to now just look back at last year. We're almost done. um with our final reporting for last year, we'll really be final in um January, but this is um a pretty good estimate of where um of what the data is starting to show us from last year. And we just use this to observe and understand what patterning looks like so that we can make really informed projections for next year. There's an entire process around
044finding out why people do what they do, communicating with families and really um publicizing the great things that we do in the school district because we do want to encourage families to attend here, particularly our residents. And that's this presentation won't be getting into that. Um that's something that the communications department and all of us work on together. But this is really just as we reflect on the data and how it might inform our projections. So, um, this chart is only resident students. So, it's telling us, um, our resident students and and where they attend. So, we've got students that on the the gray at the bottom, they're attending charter schools. So, these are public school students that are going somewhere else to a charter school. The middle is um the middle is students that
045are optioning out to another optioning out is to another public school district and then the optioning in is the number of students that are coming into St. Louis Park. So you can see that we're we sort of are trending in the same direction um across the board and we just have a slight loss of students to the public school district choices. We're not talking about private schools in this case. We wanted to look at how that compared to other school districts. So if you look at St. Louis Park, our open enrollment as a so students that come into St. Louis Park as an open enrolled student. So in the state of Minnesota, you can come into another school district as a public school student and provide your own transportation for the most part. So St.
046Louis Park, 18% of our students are open from open enrolled um are open enrolled from other school districts. And in comparison to the districts that we generally compare to, we're kind of right in the ballpark. We aren't nearly as high as a district like Minnetonka. 39% of Minnotonka's student population come from other school districts. Um, Hopkins and Edina are also higher than us. We're somewhat similar to Eden Prairie and to Robinsdale and Weisetta as a growing district um isn't accepting as many open enrolled students as they try to continue to make room for their residents. but we're right in the in the ballpark and um so at 18% of our student population. This chart shows over time families who are choosing public school. So what we're not looking at here in our Minnesota student reporting
047system are private school families. So these are families who choose a public option. what it's stacking are are what our residents are choosing. So, they're either choosing St. Louis Park and that's the bottom part of these these charts or they're optioning out to another public school district or on top that little small one on top is they're optioning out to a charter school, a public option charter school. And then that orange line going through shows the capture rate. and we've had a fairly steady capture rate at around 80% over the last several years. The interesting thing to notice is the St. Louis Park number is higher than it has been in a while. The stu the resident students choosing to attend in St. Louis Park. So, what it's starting to tell us is that there's
048more students choosing public school in general. Either more students available or more students choosing public schools. So at 80 almost 81% we're still in the ballpark of our capture rates overall. Then we wanted to compare again to that same set of school districts. Are we normal? Is it normal to capture 80% of students? And you can see again we're about in the ballpark of our neighbors. These stacks are the number. We're a small school district in terms of metro suburban school districts. So this the stacked bar just shows the size of the school districts. So um that's just for comparative purposes. The interesting thing is if you look at um the capture rate percentages at 80% again we're just in the ballpark of our neighbors. We are similar to Eden Prairie. We're a little bit
049higher than Hopkins and Robbinsdale at at the number of students that we capture. The three districts that are quite a bit higher than us or a bit higher than us are Edina, Minnotonka and Weisetta um are capturing a higher percentage of their student population. So what this tells me is that's where our opportunity for enrollment growth lies in capturing our students and that's a different conversation for a different time. But I but our enrollment growth trends tell me that the things we have been investing in and doing are making a difference. Um, but we've been reporting over time where do students go when they attend another public school district. So, this is a list of districts that where 20 or more of our students from St. Louis Park attend when they attend another school district.
050And these years from 2020 to 2024 are are net numbers. So, net of open enrollment out versus open enrollment in for those school districts that um enroll 20 or more of our students. And then way over here on the right, you can see that the the net incoming versus net outgoing. And this is last year's numbers because those numbers are final at this time or fairly final at this time. And the same for which charter schools are students attending. There's three main charter schools that enroll more than 20 of our students. And then separate from the MARS reporting system are students that also attend private schools. And this is the list of students um the list of schools where 20 or more of our St. Louis Park residents are attending and in private schools. So
051pretty much the same the same schools pretty much a similar pattern over time. um policy 545 the park the PSI um enrollment policy requires that we do a report on enrollment to the school board. So that's one of the reasons we're here tonight. So we enhance it a little bit with the information that we're using to build enrollment projections. But um we wanted to also then report out about Park Spanish immersion. What we um have noticed over time is that on average we have applicants that exceed the number of available seats by about 80 students over the past five years. That's about the average. It's been as high as 120, as low as 60. So, it's about 80 on average. This chart shows which boundary schools the students are coming from and what percentage then
052of the entire student resident student population in that boundary area is choosing PSI. You can see Aquilla and Peter Hobart in the 30% range. Susan Lingren at 25%. This looks a little more complicated, but the upshot of this story is trying to analyze the racial makeup um of students who choose to go to PSI. So if you start from the left, you can see at Aquilla, if you if you start from the the very top, Native American students, Aquilla is 2.17% of residents um who attend at Aquilla identify as Native American versus those choosing PSI 1.05%. So for instance, and then as you walk your way down, the remarkable difference you can see is that at Aquilla, 33% of students identify as African-American, 50% as white, but those from the Aquilla boundary who are choosing
053to attend PSI, eight only 8.95% 9% identify as African-Amean and 75.79 identify is white. And so you can see across the board that disparity between um the the racialized makeup of our student population and those that choose to attend PSI. So just in summary, here's some of the things we're noticing. We are exceeding projections by 2% this year. that's going to influence um that will just become a part of our cohort, our our projection model, our statistical model as we try to evaluate what um we should be making recommendations on for enrollment, which influences the number of teachers that are in the budget and influences the revenue that's in the budget. And we know that K12 enrollment for this year is over 4,400 students for the first time in four years. That's a significant change.
054Our K12 enrollment seems to be breaking trends and for the first time in eight years, we're actually growing from last year to this year. Um, our capture rate of resident students appears to remain steady. And we have a minor net loss of students to other public districts and charter schools. That's where our opportunity lies. And Park Spanish immersion continues to have a racial makeup that's not reflective of the racial makeup of the residents um in St. Louis Park Public Schools. So, here's our next steps. We are already working on welcoming families for the class of 2038. I think it's our earliest um kindergarten open house that was held a few weeks ago and we had really great attendance and we're very excited for for that application process. We will use these new numbers for enrollment
055to update the budget for the board sometime in um in after the holiday break. We will um update our revenue numbers um for the board with with these new results. It's somewhere in the neighborhood of a half a million dollars, but keep in mind we had to hire teachers and other things that go along with that many new students. And then we will we will be completing our enrollment projections. We've started that process with finance advisory committee and we will have a recommendation prepared for our February meeting, I believe. So that's our update for tonight. Awesome. Um, I will open it up to Am I allowed to do that? Okay. Questions and like uh questions and comments from any board members. >> I don't think that this is really helpful. Did you have one? I'll
056just say really quickly that this I'm I've really appreciated that director executive director Magnuson has put a lot of effort in like um adjusting this presentation based on the things that we've asked for. Tell us more about other districts. Show us some of these numbers, get into some of these details and I just really appreciate that it keeps getting refined and it's really informative. So, thank you very much. >> Okay. I um just yeah I look this is awesome. This is really helpful and I'm really happy to see the numbers are going up. So um thanks >> thank you >> Dr. Magnes and now uh we are moving on to our consent agenda. There's just a number just the boring stuff of regular summary of payroll, transfers, budget. A couple of the policies that were
057brought to um the policy committee and to the study session, there was no substantive changes and so that's why they're on the consent agenda. So, it is recommended that the school board approve the consent agenda with the following business and personnel items for the November 25th, 2025 school board meeting as presented. Do I have a motion? So move. >> I'll move. I'll second. >> Okay. Thank you. Um and I believe we need to do a roll call vote again. >> Yep. >> All right. Uh Cox >> I >> uh Williams >> I >> Mancini >> I >> Casey is an I. The motion carries. Awesome. Now we're moving on to some action items. And the first on the action item is the 2026 27 calendar. Um we'll bring it forward first and then we have
058some special guests coming in to talk about it. It is recommended that the school board approve the 202627 calendar as presented. Do I have a motion? >> A motion. >> I'll second. And now Director Loie is up. So, as executive director Loy is transitioning up, we're also going to invite the president of PAT, Nathan Tingan, and to join him as they um talk about our proposal for the calendar for school year. >> Great. Good evening, members of the board, Superintendent Dr. Hines. Um, thank you for having me and it is my pleasure to bring to you the 2627 calendar. Um, so a lot of this presentation is the presentation you've seen in the study sessions and a lot of the information I'm going to share is um, similar to what you heard in previous meetings.
059Um, some general concepts that we use when looking at the calendar each year. We're trying to balance out instructional time and contractual requirements that we need to meet for our teachers and paraprofessionals. And um looking at the calendar, we're looking to try to minimize um broken weeks, trying to maximize the number of full instructional weeks as possible. um looking at operation considerations, things like transportation um and impacts that it will have on our students and families and trying to make sure that we're taking all of those things into consideration. And you know, again, looking at the number of days of instruction are that are happening in each week. looking at the different graduation requirements for both, you know, there's the number of instructional days for um grades one through 11, but then there's um instructional
060hours for kindergarten and 12th grade that we need to make sure that we're taking into consideration. um breaks as far as how winter break is falling, looking at spring break, um the different federal holidays that were mandated to make sure that we're having um no students or no staff in the buildings. Um and then also taking in consideration the board's um request for religious holidays. Um balancing all of those things and trying to make sure that we're trying to meet the needs of our students and our staff. um in developing the calendar. I know the school board has asked that we put together a calendar committee to receive input from all the different groups. So this year we were very intentional on doing that. Um we brought together members from all of our unions, clerical
061down to school nutrition and asked for input. We had two different um calendar committee meetings where we gathered input and suggestions and just reminded individuals that this is an opportunity for them to share their perspectives, but then also let them know there are a number of different factors that play into the calendar. And we were going to do our best to try to take some considerations into or their considerations in or their feedback into consideration and try to put together a calendar that would be optimal for everyone. Um so we did that. We reviewed um with both Spark and PAT um in meet and confer a number of times to make tweaks and changes to the calendar that is being proposed this evening. Um it was discussed during the superintendent's listening sessions with the different
062community members to make sure that we're trying to receive multiple um perspectives and making sure that we're getting diverse perspectives into the calendar considerations. And then it was also presented um I know that there was some question after the last study session. So, we went back to PAT and asked um Nathan and the PAT leadership team to review that with the members and they had a special emergency meeting they called it or um where they brought the building reps together and um reviewed the calendar last week. So, the calendar we're bringing to you is similar to the one that we brought to you last week uh or last um board meeting or study session, excuse me. Um, and this is the calendar that is being recommended by cabinet and PAT as well. >> Awesome. Great.
063Uh, do before we put it to a vote, do we have any questions or comments? [clears throat] >> Thank you. Um, first off, I I want to say I uh recognize the uh seemingly endless constraints that limit our flexibility when coming up with a school calendar. Um, like you you had mentioned, uh, there's an enormous list of considerations to keep in mind here. Um, there are, you know, a number of the number of instructional days are the number of instructional days. Uh, there there are state laws, there are testing calendars that create limited space for flexibility. And so I do want to give uh a a massive thank you and kudos to to the cabinet and staff and uh Dr. Hines and and everyone who uh sought feedback uh from community members uh when coming
064up with this calendar and from the numerous stakeholders that this impacts. Um I I appreciate the weighing of those varied interests um to get to this point in the process. Um so thank you. It's hard work to to gather the authentic community feedback around this calendar and I think you you you've done that. Um I also just want to recognize that I think the uh the strength of our community lies in its long history of diversity um and this district's ongoing commitment to equity transformation and I do want to just provide a voice for those community members for whom the religious holidays like Eid Lada that lands within the school calendar this coming year is an important issue. Um it is an important issue for a Muslim uh community for the for this calendar. Um
065and I'm again thankful that you've you've heard from the community and you'll continue to to work with them uh with with parents uh to ensure that uh students will have an excuse absence uh when that day comes up. Um but I I still believe it's imperative that we do more in the spirit of equity and belonging. Um I I think the students who observe these religious holidays will miss um the a day of school whether or not we hold instruction on that day. Um, and I think it's important we keep these students in mind. I I recognize that it's a a a heavy lift and it is a significant challenge. Um, but I I I just want to provide that that voice. >> And I just want to add to that we myself and I
066know Dr. Hines have had number of conversations in regards to this and we are committed to making sure that we are getting people's voice and seeking out multiple perspectives to get and we want to acknowledge that we're not going to be able to make everyone happy but we are committed to making sure that we're hearing people and trying to understand and address some of the concerns that are happening. you know, we're learning, you know, just this last week, I had a a conversation with an elementary teacher from Aquilla, and it's like, well, why aren't we having, you know, can we consider moving the data advance to uh, you know, a week later so that way people aren't having that broken week essentially in the early months of or in the early weeks of August. So,
067we're looking at multiple things and trying to take people's consider, you know, thoughts and um, requests into consideration and we're going to continue to do that. I mean it's just it's been I don't know this is like the eighth time I've been [laughter] through this [gasps] and um I guess what I'll say I mean for the last I guess the last time is like I mean we say this it but it's so true that like you cannot make a perfect calendar. It is like literally impossible. And as [clears throat] board members, one of the things that we had we had to get used to during COVID and a lot of other times is like you you might have to make a yes or no vote on something that you don't feel 100% on, right? Like
068you have to get to 51%. Because we don't get like nuance when it's yes or no. So, um I think like like Taylor said, I just really appreciate the um the explanations, the work knowing I mean I want to acknowledge um our um um public comment guest from earlier who was talking about starting before Labor Day. Totally valid concern. I get it. Um and there's a lot of other things. So, there's pros and cons and pros and cons and pros and cons all on top of each other. So just um this is hard. It's you're going to do it again next year. [laughter] Um and so keeping in mind all of those kind of general concepts, keeping in mind kind of what Taylor said, like those continuing conversations. I think keeping in mind data, right?
069Because I mean something that I've been thinking about as we've been talking about religious holidays, right? Is that like we're a a public school district. We are not in the business of observing religious holidays, any religious holidays. What we're in the business of is educating students. But we also know that students family observations and obligations can cause them to miss school. And so when we have holidays where a lot of kids miss school, then there's a there is a point at which that becomes a distraction or a detriment to those students, right? So it's a matter of like do we know how many students will miss? So when we when we do have religious holidays that that end up being on school days, like paying attention to those things and and maybe surveying families, right?
070Are you going to miss would you miss school or not? So that we know and we have some really good data on what happens when we have school because we can't we can't have every religious holiday, right? We certainly have families who celebrate holidays that are not on our radar at all here, but it's like we have to make a a choice, I guess, of a the place where it becomes um the the the critical mass, I guess, that becomes an issue. So, that is my charge to you all who will be here next year doing this again. Um but thanks thanks and and thanks to Nathan and and Pat folks for coming in and and being supportive. This is it is definitely a heavy lift and it is definitely something that makes no one
071happy. So, thanks. >> Colin, did you have anything to say? >> Yeah, I mean I as I've said in the listening session and I've said it other times, just really proud of the work that we've done. It's a lot. Um it's it's um a lot of pieces in there and you can see it and you can see um how devoted our our district is to you know reflecting what we heard back you know to the best of our abilities and also making other commitments to continue to have conversations not just about calendars but about things that are important to those communities and making sure that we're supporting communities in many ways. And um I think that we we are doing a great job of doing that and we're learning and we keep advancing that. So
072really appreciative of that. Um as I mentioned during the study session, I have been interested slightly in the conversation of how many days of school do we have and is it enough where Minnesota is at one of the lowest numbers in the nation. And um when we're trying to do so much and we're trying to make sure that our students are well prepared, we're trying to make sure that they're prepared for testing. We're trying to make sure that um any number of things out there that they that we are trying to do for students sake. Um and that's what what really feels most important here is trying to think about our students and how we best support our students and um and and just really um want to keep that in mind here and stuff.
073So just appreciative of all the work and um I know that we'll continue to do more work in the future and we we'll continue to to um invite more voices in here, but it is a constraint. It's um it's a lot to think about. I think we might be one of the districts that thinks the most about this. I can't can't verify that, but um but I but I do get a sense that we've been talking a lot about this and and I don't know how many other districts are putting this level of attention to it or not, but um just really appreciate again everybody's voice at the table there um that have come to pres talk to us that participate in the conversation and um you know work with us. So thanks a lot.
074>> Great. Great. And I just um I also along with most of what everyone has already said is that we asked you to do something and I appreciate our superintendent and I appreciate our executive team doing it. So I really like um that's awesome. I mean I think that's a way that uh the public knows that we're holding our administrator accountable and I really appreciate that you've done the listening sessions and that you um followed through on the ask that we had. So I appreciate that. So, with that, should we do the roll call? >> Okay, Cox. >> I Okay, there we go. I >> Williams >> I >> Mancini >> I >> Casey has an I and the motion carries 4 Z. >> Awesome. All right, moving on to the next action item which
075is miscellaneous pay rates. It is recommended that this uh school board approve the 202526 miscellaneous pay rates as presented. Do I have a motion? >> Second. >> Okay. Uh did you want to talk on this? I mean is that do we have a presenter? >> That's me. >> Oh, sorry you're there. >> Hi. [laughter] >> I forgot we have a podium right there. Thank you. >> All right. So, thank you. Um, so just kind of to give some context around this, this, um, this document holds all of our miscellaneous pay rates for a variety of different positions throughout the district. Um, so we have all of our positions that are in our collective bargaining groups and our um, employee groups across the district and those are all our contracted employees. This covers all of the
076individuals who work in temporary roles primarily in comm um in community ed. Um, we have a lot of positions within the community ed department that are in this document. Um there's a number of positions that are um temporary positions that are within our actual contracts, but we specify and lay out what those rates of pay are to make sure that we're being transparent and looking at what market rates are. And um just making sure that we're still remaining competitive because a lot of those roles we have about um about 800 contracted employees and of that we probably pay anywhere from 12 to,300 people. So that makes the rest of them temporary positions. Um I know that there was some questions around the document and one of the questions Taylor you had in regards to um
077the sports and I was able to connect with Andy Ewer, director of athletics and um what he shared with me is that um the amounts that you're seeing in the document are for the event itself. So that's for one event that they do. And the reason why there's a a difference in um boys basketball and female or girls basketball is because the event time is longer. The boys games are there's three games backtoback as opposed to the girls are only two games back toback. So it's just kind of based off of the the amount of time that they're paid for each game is the same. It's just the length of time that they're working. Um but again these rates then go through and look at athletics and all the different departments. >> Awesome. Did anybody
078have any questions comments? >> I just just quick comment >> if I can go ahead. Um I was just going to say great to see all this information. Great um you know I was looking at the sports stuff and great to see that we do pay people for some of that work. Um because you know we've talked about it at school board and what we get paid to do stuff and um and it's nice that we're looking at that and we're being thoughtful about how we're doing that in terms of supporting people who that that work is work for them. And so just really appreciate again as always the work that we always do to be equitable and thoughtful about supporting people in many different roles. >> Awesome. I think we're ready for the roll
079call. All right. Cox >> I. >> Williams. >> I. >> Mancini. >> I. >> Casey is an eye and motion carries. >> All right. On to labor agreement. Um, SEIU [clears throat] local 284 school nutrition personnel. Um, it is recommended that the school board approve the 2025 2027 labor agreement with the school nutrition employees as presented. Do I have a motion? >> Second. I'll second. Um, and director Louie again. >> I think you're going to be here a while. [laughter] >> This is the last one for this evening. >> All right. Well, thank you. Um so just to kind of recap, we had um our negotiations with our school nutrition, a very successful sessions. Um we're presenting to you the 2527 contract. This group covers our school nutrition staff. So all of our cooks, our
080lead cooks across all of the positions in the district. It is representing approximately 30 employees. Um a small but mighty team. The work that they do is absolutely amazing. Um they we had a total of six negotiation sessions with a tenative agreement um on October 29th and part of the agreement was that I would go assist them in cooking lunch. So I have to hold to my commitment in doing that. So um that'll be an interesting experience. I told them I wanted a hat, not a hairet. So um but so I'm going to go and help serve lunch one of these days in the spring. Um, human resources worked with the business office to make sure that our economic package was financially um, sound and in reason in line with budget forecast. Um, we worked
081with Tammy Borggan, our director of school nutrition, um, to make sure that the language um, reflected in was in line with the daily operations. Um, we added, you know, similar to our custodians where we added two and two on the salary schedule. We made some adjustments with the career increment, moving it to a retention stipen, pulling it out of that hourly rate. Um, we added some language around um, Minnesota paid leave. We standardized um, some of the language around benefits to make sure that it's more uniformed across all of our groups. Um, we also added so school nutrition works the summer program and um, with summer unemployment it's a little more challenging to fill some of those roles. So, we increased the summer rate. They get $2.75 as opposed to $2.50 to try to help
082increase um incentivize individuals to want to come back and help support the summer program. Um otherwise, yeah, it was a really good bargaining session and I feel that we were able to make some meaningful adjustments to make sure that we remain competitive in the market and um for the first time in quite a while, I don't think we have any if if maybe one opening in school nutrition. So, we're we're we're doing good in that group. So, >> great. Thank you. And as a person who um not only has been screened by different labor unions and also is a part of labor union, I appreciate the very speedy negotiations and fair settlement. That's awesome. That's what we like to see. >> Does anybody have any questions or comments? >> Okay. Uh yeah, I guess uh
083I don't have any questions. Uh but I do want to thank our school nutrition staff for all the work they put into this district. Uh it's a critical role for the education and development of our students and I also think uh the the work does not go unnoticed. Uh I I wanted to uh just give a quick anecdote where uh we recently had an exercise in the financial advisory committee uh that highlighted um you know the the great programs and services that our district offers. um at the and at the table that I was at, the school nutrition was specifically highlighted by one of the student interns in the group. Uh so I I just want to recognize that um we do have a great school nutrition program in this district and it is thanks
084to this team of individuals. So thank you. >> You want to do your vote? >> Yes. Who made the second? >> I did. Okay. Thank you. All right, Cox >> I, >> Williams. >> Hi, >> Nancini. >> Hi, >> Casey is an I. And the motion carries. >> Moving right along to some policies. Um, the first policy is 507.5, school resource officer. It is recommended that the school board approve policy 507.5, school resource officer, as presented. Do I have a motion? >> Second. Okay. So, >> would you like for and so I can step in for director Davis as she's vacationing with her family. Um, this is a second read of the policy 507.5 and I will draw your attention to um Roman numeral six that talks about data. So the addition to this policy
085was the specificity of the request of annual data reporting to the school board which identifies the data points that the board would like to see in that reporting. Any questions? It hasn't really changed much >> from our discussion. Correct. Awesome. Okay. Director Casey All right, Cox. >> I, >> Williams. >> Hi, >> Mancini. >> I >> Casey has an I and the motion carries. >> All right. Um, moving on to policy development, second reading of policy 613, graduation requirements. It is recommended that the school board approve policy 613, graduation requirements, as presented. Do I have a motion? >> I'll move it. And there I mean there wasn't a lot of change from the study session. No. >> So just to highlight the additions that are in blue, we did go through and combed the um
086the policy to make sure that it was specific to St. Louis Park public schools. So you'll see that in blue. And I will also draw your attention to the addition to um the community service hours for the class of 2029 has been added per recommendation from school administration and the counseling department. >> Yep. And just for those um who may not have known this before, the reason why we needed to change some of the policy as far as requirements go is because we're transitioning to a block schedule. And so students will have more opportunities to take electives, um more opportunities to dive deep into some really cool stuff. And then there's just a few other um state requirements, right? The personal finance and things of that nature. Awesome. Go ahead. Cox >> I >> Williams.
087>> Nanci. I AC is not and the motion carries. >> Awesome. And we did it. Record time. >> Oh, I know we have board updates, but it's gonna go fast because there's only four. So, um, now we have some board updates. Uh, do I'm sure there are some. >> I can do a couple quick ones. So, whoever wants to start you, Taylor, you can go first. Um I I guess uh for me I participated in uh more of the the superintendent listing sessions. I can't can't remember exactly what dates they all went. It was it was it was quite a ride. Uh but thank you also for for hosting those. Uh I think that was really important to get that that feedback from the community. Um and then also just an update for and a
088and a big thank you for everyone who donated to Peter Hobart uh direct. They did meet their their fundraising goal of $20,000 and they went they got I think 20,176 which will go to um uh uh field trip uh funding. So that was great. Thank you for everyone who participated. >> Director C, do you want to go? >> Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say that um I participated attended the kindergarten welcoming events. I didn't really participate but I attended it and it's great to see great to see the energy. Um, great presentation by our principles. Um, great um, uh, MCing or hosting by Dr. Cooper. That was just a really fun event and the energy, like I said, was really great and I'm glad that we're doing some work to welcome people like that.
089Um, to welcome our new families or families that have a new kindergartener. Um, at the high school, I've been I've attended a peak meeting um, and I also attended the family welcome night. And I got to say that the family welcome night was really exciting to see. there was such good representation by different groups there. Um I wish that maybe some more parents were there to participate in it and um take it in because there were representatives from the driving school, there were representatives from clubs, there were representatives from any number, you know, from all the different areas and it was just a really great opportunity to really connect and just hope that we continue to find ways to do that. Um, I also attended the um the musical. I attended stream uh string or
090strings. Um, anyways, it was really good to see and I continue to be glad that our district supports the fine arts that we give students opportunities and that they put on really nice and interesting shows and and something like this like this this show was not the ones that you you tend to see schools doing these days um in terms of the like standards and stuff. just a newer show and taking a risk by doing that and just really appreciate that. Um at the high school there's also a I believe um coffee with the principal coming up in December um as well. I can't remember the date right now but um I know that information is available online and included in in the newsletter. And I think there was um I was going to uh
091say um again I don't know I think that's it. I was going to say that this feels very much like we used to call this communications and transmitts and because I'm transmitting from uh Santa Fe, New Mexico today, it feels like it's communication and transmitt. But uh um thank you for um glad that we had the technology. The boardroom looks great. Um it's been really nice to participate this way. I'm really glad that we could support that and um really really appreciative of our technology and our facilities people for creating such a wonderful space for us. And um thank you so much I don't really have anything, but I was gonna say that, Colin. So, [laughter] and I'm actually in the room. >> I know, right? But I was gonna say it looks it still
092looks great. >> So excited to be in the room. Thanks to Director Marble and all of the entire team. And I don't we can't see you back in the room there, but [laughter] um the whole the whole staff that's um working to make this smoothly go smoothly even with someone coming from Santa Fe, New Mexico. So, um this is it's it's just really um fantastic to be in here for the first time. >> Um well, since uh Chair Cox didn't bring it up, I will bring it up. director uh Casey Chair Cox and I well you weren't technically there for SLB attended the AMSD conference fall conference with director Anderson and it was a really great day to meet with other superintendent from around um the state as well as other school board members specifically
093learning together and how we can best support our district and um how special again our superintendent is and how um we're doing such good things here. I also wanted to give a shout out to I think communications for two things. First, from the listening session last spring, there was a suggestion on raising money. So, this was the first time we had a huge campaign for a give to the max day and I was really impressed with um all of the the things that I saw. I thought that was amazing. And there was also a request, and I don't remember if it was from the board or if it was from a community member, but having more communications sent out to residents who don't necessarily have a student. And I got mine in the mail and
094I read it. I read it front to cover. Um, so it was or front to back and it was great. This is a really great way to highlight uh all of the great things that we're doing in St. Louis Park. Um, I can't wait to see more. I love the fact that there's QR codes for more information if you want more than just a fold out. So, uh, really well done, communications department. That was awesome. And I love that you spotlighted the advanced placement classes because I think there's always a little bit of some, uh, confusion, uh, in our community about whether we have honors classes or advanced classes. And this was putting it right front and center. Yes, we do. Um, I'm living that reality right now because I have a senior in um,
095high school who's like waffled from I'm severely stressed out to why am I doing this? I want to slide. I wish I wasn't doing this. So, that is my update. Oh, and one more >> I just want to throw out um for the on the AMSD conference. I forgot about that. So, thank you. I guess it was a few weeks ago. Um but there was a fantastic keynote speaker um that was really talking about the importance of formative assessment which was you know kind of a deep dive for like board members but it made me feel so validated that that is the work that we have been talking about over and over. We heard from the um school improvement plans all of that. It's like it was it felt just so aligned with everything that
096we've been doing. So that was really gratifying. We also got to participate in that awesome workshop that was about like what would you do um priorities and stuff too. That was a really nice exercise. Really apprec appreciate the uh Rochester superintendent really leading that and it was a great opportunity too. So >> and we won. [laughter] >> That's was important. >> It was a competition and so it was important that we won. Yes. [laughter] >> All right. Well, thank you everyone. This was fun. Uh thanks for having this great space. This was kind of amazing to be in here. So and with that I will adjourn this at 7:51. Come on.