St. Louis Park Schools School Board Meeting 6.25.2024

001e e e all right I'm going to call this the June 25th regular school board business meeting of the St Louis Park School Board for to order it is 6:30 on the dot um before we get going I will read the land acknowledgement we are gathered on the land of Dakota ojibway peoples I ask you to join me in acknowledging the Dakota ojibway Community their Elders both past and present as well as future Generations St Louis Park public schools also acknowledges that it was founded upon exclusions and erasers of many indigenous peoples including those on Whose land the school district is located this acknowledgement demonstrates a commitment to the dis Ling of the ongoing legacies of colonial power and the district's desire to support the ongoing work of local indigenous communities to thrive in our

002schools okay the next thing on the agenda is the approval of the agenda I will go ahead and read the agenda we have open Forum which I don't believe we have anybody signed up for currently nobody in the room is signed up for nobody okay um and then we have superintendent report we have discussion items 6A is strategic plan 2324 year in summary 6B M SBA invoice for superintendent search 6C is policy development first reading of policy 6113 graduation requirements and then we have the consent agenda which has some business items on it some Personnel items some minutes on it we have then on the action agenda um our Iowa Authority which always looks weird and always sounds weird but our Iowa Authority then we have our um fiscal year 2025 final budget approval we

003have the fiscal year 2026 ltfm uh ISD 283 which is our district long-term facilities maintenance and then we have the uh fiscal year 2026 long-term uh ltfm ISD 287 which is the um intermediate District that we're part of then we have 8e Micro purchase threshold we have 8f employment employee agreement for an elementary principle we have 8G employee agreement for the director of communications we have a h approval of name for new construction building then Communications and transmittal and then adjournment so with that agenda I um is there a motion to approve the agenda it is recommended that the school board approved the agenda for June 28 20 June 20 what is today 25th 2024 as presented we have a motion on that so oh I I'll go with Taylor and then a second vilia

004uh and in special discuss on this uh all those in favor say I I any oppose passes 5 Z okay again we don't have anybody signed up for open form I'm just checking there's nobody signed up in the back and nobody here then I will skip that part and we will go directly into superintendent report great thank you board chair board members I'll begin my report tonight by shooting the mission it grounds our work and is the reason that we gather St Lou Park Public Schools sees inspires and empowers each learner to live their Brilliance in environment that centers student voice and experience to create racially Equitable learning that energizes and enhances the spirit of our community board members I want to use this opportunity tonight simply to say that it has been oh don't

005look at me oh simply to say that it's been an honor for me to serve as your inter room superintendent for the school year H I'm grateful for each of you and for your encouragement and support during the school year I can tell you that it's energ ing to work for a school board whose members bring deep expertise from their various domains to the table whose members aim to ensure continuous Improvement and whose members are courageous in their leadership along with cabinet members who I hold in high regard you have patiently answered all of my questions is here you have worked to ensure that I have sufficient context and history to help us make good decisions together I also want to thank the SLP students staff and families who have demonstrated incredible resilience and care

006for one another I have shared widely the strengths and opportunities of this district from my outside perspective I am confident about the future because of the amazing students the dedicated staff the engaged Community the leadership team that Dr Hines has assembled and because of all the people I hope that I have contributed in some small way to the history of success here in SLP I'm leaving with new learning and new friendships and honestly I couldn't ask for more uh when I retired the first time I wrote a strategic plan for myself I'm sure it shocks you but it is hard for me to sit still I actually have a personal mission with reidentified strategies action steps and success indicators for each strategy uh I look forward to getting my personal mission back on track and

007I wish you all the best in accomplishing thank you I have asked for from Dr M's permission that we can at least deviate slightly that if anybody would like to say anything at this moment I encourage um other board members who feel compelled you don't have to feel compelled I know that we've all shared some of our thoughts in private as well too so but if anybody would like to say anything publicly be pay time do that um I want to say thank you for jumping in where you did where we in the midst of a fire and helping us put it out um taking on a lot of a lot of the challenges that we had and wearing them on your back so that we can concentrate on some like the new board members

008especially gain me information and um help in that manner um also thank you to your health for being patient with us as well letting you come back into this so that we can be successful and I wish you success on your personal goal I wish I was surprised that you had a strategic plan it's been an honor and a pleasure to learn from you and work with you um Celia is right the moment you stepped in was a moment of really significant challenge for us um and we were very lucky that you were willing to walk this journey with us for the last year or so um I know I can say that for myself um also you came in at a time where you didn't you weren't given automatic trust right because we had

009just experienced something really hard and so the things that you accomplished in terms of building trust with this board with the staff the students the community that in and of itself might be enough but it's not all that you did and we we would have been okay with somebody who could have just sort of steered the ship straight from beginning to end to get us to a permanent superintendent but you jumed in and you did some really really hard work with us through some really challenging times um I know that I'll be forever grateful for that um and I really appreciate you and your friendship and your leadership in the space thank you I don't have anything longwinded to say other than just like going with uh Dr Anderson that said I really thank you

010for for stepping in at a challenging time and also for all the work you did to help onboard us uh I really appreciate all your experience that you brought and your leadership that you brought um I wouldn't be where I am today as as a director as quickly as I am without a lot of your leadership so I thank you for that um I definitely have thank you every time I've seen you like the past two three months anticipating this but I think what got me tonight was when you when you read our mission because I didn't know when I had that first one call with you in September how um natural that mission would sound coming out of your mouth and I hope that our mission and your personal mission aren't that different I

011suspect that they're not and that our and that helping us um work towards our mission was in alignment with your personal strategic plan and your personal mission um because it felt like such a natural bit and um so I'm I'm sad and excited I'm I'm excited for what's coming next and for you and for your your grandbaby and everybody but I understand that that's the last time we hear you um read our mission because it has felt like such a um I don't know unnecessary um I don't know every time you read it it just feels like we're reating what we believe and and it came right into that um like everybody I don't even know what else to say I'm but I thank you the challenge of being chair the benefit of being chair

012is that you get to sort of come in last right but then everybody said a lot of things that you wanted to say and I just appreciate um that like I was thinking about some of the things that other people have said and like like for us we felt like we were in a fire um and not a lot of people come marching into a fire and say Yes Al there's few brave people who do that and you're I remember like there were people suggesting your name people that we know people that we trust and you were here next thing we knew and you were doing this work right and you were in the midst of doing it and taking it tackling it head on and and um I've had the benefit the last six

013months working aside you um as chair and learning a lot from you in terms of what it means to be a leader what it means to make courageous choices what it means to be brave um what it means to you know as an is saying that ground ourselves in a mission like sometimes it it's really easy for us to get caught up in emotions to get caught up in everything that's going on but then to bring it back to our mission to bring it back to the students to bring it back to all the things that we need to do and um it's been incredible it's been great it's been um just just that that ability to just get us steud and then take us Beyond I think as um director Davis was saying and

014um it's just been great and I feel like we we've accomplished a lot I'm really excited you've set up like basically everything is set up for Dr Hines here you go right like all so many things that we've been looking for and asking for in terms of some things here and um I think you've done a really great job with that so I'll miss having you right here I still have your phone number that I can text you but I think I'm going to get fewer of the texts at like 7 6 a.m. on the weekend and some of the things with updates which I will appreciate and I will respect too that I don't text you on kind of things either but just really appreciate thank you so much all right with that we

015will carry on and I don't know why it's going to get the Gap um maybe I'm emotional it felt important right here ye here you um all right but let's move on to discussion item six which is our 6A strategic plan 2324 year in summary our presenters are Dr Becca Stark data scientist and P coordinator Ashley who's in her tonight in her last bit of her role as senior communication specialist and we'll explain why um and Jason no who's the assistant director Human Resources so I will turn it over to the three of you to us about the Strategic plan you're in okay uh chair Cox members of the board superintendent Maguire um my name is Becca star I'm the data scientist and title coordinator and I'm going to start by talking about our our

016Priority One Work update and then I'll pass it along um to these two and now I can't believe I have to follow this after I'm not going to read the mission with quite the same um but anyway I wanted to ground this work in our mission statement St Louis Park School sees inspires and empowers each learner to live their Brilliance in an environment that centers student voice and experience to create racially Equitable learning that energizes and enhances the spirit of our community so just as a reminder Priority One for this year was culturally relevant literacy through the care team process and the goal here is to sustain and deepen culturally relevant literacy development through the collaborative action research for Equity or the care team process and when we talk about uh culturally relevant literacy um

017here at St Louis Park we have a framework that's based on the work of Dr Goldie Muhammad um who put forth 5% suits that we have um taken and um molded a little bit to fit our our um the design that we want to look at but it's these basic five measurement areas the first is skills where we want to look at how students are able to demonstrate Proficiency in reading the next is identity um so how can students discover who they are who others are and who they desire to be intellectualism is when we're talking about like sighting text ual evidence writing expression of ideas and then crit criticality brings in critical thinking um and that students understand power Humanity inequities oppression anti-sexism and anti-racism and then the fifth one is Joy um we

018want to see students Express happiness and a love for Learning and so our care team work um again the collaborative action research for Equity is a process that is completely by teams made up of grade level teams um Department teams and then other groups of um staff like coaches and things like that they will go through typically two cycles a year and in the um the square the the graph on the left there it kind of shows the process so the teams get together they develop their vision for racial Equity they formulate a researchable question based on their students and their data they designed some type of culturally relevant lesson or activity to implement they then go ahead and Implement that collect data analyze the data and reflect on what they've learned um and then

019that should drive um change in their practice so it's really a professional development um process for teachers and staff and then I also wanted to highlight in the Box on the right some of the essential elements that are part of the Care team process um it's part of it is to get feed feedback and have dialogue with focal students of color that each team picks from their classes or the people that they work with the second part is reflection and logging on lessons brought to the care teams peer observations um is part of the cycle and then sharing the learning out to others and then ultimately it's all to change their practices so one way that we can examine how our care teams are developing culturally relevant literacy is to look at the five Pursuits

020so look for evidence of the five Pursuits um in the questions that they're writing and the activities that they're documenting and things like that so similar to what I did for cycle one I asked all of the building leaders um and the teams to share their documentation with me so that I could go through it and look for evidence of the five Pursuits and in this table I have listed for um both cycle one and cycle two the percentage of time that I could identify each of these um Pursuits in their um research questions so as you can see cycle one and cycle two were very similar with skills uh being the most um frequently focused on Pursuit uh with 42% in cycle 2 next with identity close to 30% Joy was seen in some

021intellectualism in a couple and then I didn't find explicit evidence of criticality in the the questions or the documentation but as you'll see there's definitely like opportunities for that to show up later in the process so that's one way we kind of looked at um culturally relevant literacy through the care team process the effectiveness of care team work can also be seen in the practices and in teacher reflection so the remainder of my portion of the presentation will be providing examples um for each level of schooling and all of these examples are from the second cycle so the spring cycle so in early childhood uh this year they were really focusing on self-regulation strategies for the children and also sharing those um strategies with families and when they were asked to reflect on their work

022uh they demonstrated many ways to show learning and so here are just a couple of examples that I thought were representative so this year was the best care cycle I have participated in the word data can be overwhelming especially when it is not clear what your process or purpose is supposed to be instead of spending most of our time trying to figure out how to collect data as I have in the past care Cycles we as a team took what we were learning and discussed how to turn it inwards focusing on how we could use our new knowledge and ideas on how to become a better teacher and I saw evidence kind of throughout that there was just many ways to show the learning um rather than just trying to like quantify it the elementary

023schools um in their second cycle it was really a continuation of work from from um the first cycle they focused on reading skills using a variety of curricula and differentiation and assessed progress with curricular assessments and standardized tests um I just wanted to share one of the example questions that was pretty representative how does utilizing initial phonics and comprehension assessment data to differentiate reading instruction impact student growth and in the elementary school they a lot of the teams did a really good job of incorporating culturally relevant literacy into their lessons so they would take a story and and present it in many different ways having the students think really deeply about the stories and relating it um to the students own experience and I saw a lot of examples of that in Middle School uh

024their second cycle was also um a continuation in terms of um they were still looking at student sense of belonging so their questions largely focused on things like if you're providing students feedback if you're focusing on building relationships between among peers or between um teachers and students if you're centering student voice experience um and choice um and how do all of these affect student sense of belonging so for an example one of the math teams was working to Foster relationship building um by using mixed ability group problem solving so they talked about these um math problems called Low sealing or sorry low floor High cealing tasks um and these are tasks that are accessible to a wide range of students so that mixed ability students could work together on it um and I just pulled

025an example from Joe bowler's text and I I don't know if you can really see it but basically this is a problem where the question is can you find every number between one and 20 using only these four fours and any operation so for example a pretty um basic answer to this question would be 4 + 4al 8 identifying the number eight but then it can be get a lot more complex um and with the highest achieving students might even be able might even be asked to come up like with their own more difficult problem um or the example here is can you use four fours to find negative integers so it's just an example of students working together and they can all be working at their own level and scaffold each other and they

026found that this this really increased the peers in knowing one another Comfort working with their peers and feeling needed and heard another example had to do with students sharing their lived experiences and relating classroom content to their home countries um and these the teachers on this team found really high levels of Engagement so there was an example of um they were telling a story about marking houses in Zambia with chalk after they received the polio vaccine and there was a student from Kenya who had seen that in his home country and then was able to share his lived experience and so these types of activities and really centering student experience um had high engagement levels at the middle school the middle school also asked their teachers to do a lot of reflecting on their care

027cycle this spring and I just wanted to share some of their Reflections um they talked about how belonging according to students is inclusive feeling invited having your voice and opinion respected friendship familiarity um some com commented on the feeling that really genuine work was being done they can see that students are feeling more belonging um but they also stated that this belonging might be felt in some spaces but not all spaces so there is still room for growth there they reflect Ed that students benefit from getting individual attention having choice and voice in the classroom um leaning into their individual strengths and interests and relationship building just a few more Reflections from the Middle School teachers they talked about needing to intentionally create belonging in their classrooms like starting in day one um building that

028Community incorporating Community Building into the content of their lessons and the activities that they're doing when the students are learning and interacting but also maintaining high expectations and to continue to center student voice in what belonging means to them the high school did a share out day where um like one representative from each care team would meet with like other representatives from other care teams to share basically their question and and what they implemented in their classrooms and then kind of how they reflected about that the high school questions um the most frequent ones tended to look at um how do teacher identity giving feedback um collaboration differentiation how do all these things affect relationships another example was how does student L learning and Scaffolding affect student engagement and they were asked to report out

029on the activities or lessons that they did in in tier one so in their own classroom core instruction and there was a variety of things that different teams tried some of the things that stood out were discussion on students and teacher identity providing frequent feedback um both from other peers and from the teacher community building activities student-led projects and collecting student voice and here's one example that I um received from one of the teachers it's a speculative fiction summative um writing project and here students were like asked tasked with like basically imagining A Whole New World and having to decide like all the different aspects of what this new society would look like so designing a government um and I don't know if you can read this but um so they had to really think

030about like the politics like who has power who has the resources how does that play out and so I just saw this as lots of opportunities for intellectualism and criticality um in this type of project and I just wanted to share a couple of Reflections from the high school level um some uh this these are from teachers identity as a teacher has an impact it matters how you show up and many different parts of teacher identity connect or maybe disconnect with students the more we understand about our own identity as teachers helps to better support students in discovering their own identities and then another one students are growing in their ability to name that the class is currently not representative of the school and that they want to increase representation within the yearbook class they

031understand the goals for next year just thought those were a couple of good examples of learning at the high school level um and so the next steps we're continuing on the um same priority work questions for 2425 I would like to dig a little deeper in trying to get more details about what's going on reading these Reflections um from the teachers it's it's clear that there's a lot happening that's some really great stuff um and I would like to get in and do some observations maybe interview the care team to try to get more detailed information and also to support them um um support the teams in working on more detailed documentation do we want to do questions or I'm open to that I think that would be fine since these are some different areas

032and stuff so anybody have questions about it starts and you can do it at the end too yeah do okay anybody yeah I just had a quick question about U so where this we just are we in the midst of cycle two so I didn't get like details of specific dates but typically they talk about it as like semester one and semester 2 or fall and spring so they're trying to the goal is to complete two cycles during the school year like that yeah thank you then let's move on to the next section thank you thank you um I'm Ashley Su I'm the communication senior specialist in the communications director I'm Jason Lo um Assistant Director of Human Resources and I actually I want to go back a couple slides because I think it pertains

033exactly to why our priority work number two is so important so this this um quote that was about identity as a teacher has an impact um as it pertains directly to why retaining our staff of color is so important because we are trying to ensure that our staff are reflective of our students so that we can build a cohesive experience across our school community so I just thought that that was a an interesting area because when we look at what priority work number two is it's developing a retention strategy that amplifies the voices perspectives and needs of our staff of color leading to a safer more empowered and fulfilling culture of belonging focused on retaining racially conscious staff so I just want to share a little bit about my journey and how I got into

034uh because I kind I got a little bit deeper into this process along the way so just for some context earlier in the year a survey was done and that was part of the first steps um and I'll talk a little bit more about that um later and partway through the process the cabinet level was working on what are the next steps and director Hicks brought me into the conversation as a staff member of color just because she was bouncing some ideas off of me and then I had all kinds of ideas that then I ended up getting into some more of the leadership through the process um which has been really exciting and empowering in in my own uh Journey with St Louis Park because what drew me to be here was as a

035staff of as a person of color I wanted to be the district that uh focused on racial equity and this is the place that we do it so it's been great to be a part of um this process and I'm excited to share more about what our learnings have been um but I'm going to pass over to Jason who's going to share a little bit more about um where our current standings have been yeah so thank you good evening everyone um in Human Resources we use a number of different variables to check and see how things are going as far as Recruitment and Retention of Staff of color today what I'm going to do is on the slide I'm going to walk through a couple of different metrics that we use to see how the

036district's doing as we work with leadership throughout the district engage and to consistently remind them the importance of the Strategic work that we're doing um one of the first sets of numbers here we' got the new hires that's the new hires that are brought into the district and that's broken down these are the new hire percentages of Staff of color that are brought in each year and as you can see that it's fairly consistent that the number and the percentage of Staff of color being brought in each year has consistently increased with a few um exceptions um a few years were and there that um it did not when you take a look at the total number of Staff of color um you can also see that that has consistent stantly increased over the course

037of each year um and when you look at it over the course of nine years it's increased about 15% so it is showing that while we're not quite where we would like to be we are making progress and we are moving in the right direction um the next um set of data we have is the teachers of color now when you look at you know 2014 we had 29 teachers of color and today of the 3 and uh 367 teachers 58 of them have self-identified as a teacher of color that's about um what was that about 16% of our teachers um so when you look at the current reality I want to point out and bring to the um bring to the center is when you look at Minnesota according to pby the professional licensing

038Standards Board of all of the teachers in Minnesota only 5.9% % of them identify as teachers of color so when you look at again we're not quite where we'd like to be but when you look at St Louis Park even when you look at the Metro Area the metro area is is about 12% teachers of color we're at 16 so we're still sitting higher so when we're looking at things like um when you're looking at our retent or our recruitment efforts we're consistently reviewing these in cabinet talking with principles um we've adopted a number of different practices as far as like where are jobs being posted they're being on diversity jobs you know they're being put out there and many different um Outlets to try to attract a wide variety of candidates to apply for

039our job when they're becoming candidates and they're applying for the job um or excuse me when they're becoming applicants and they're applying for the job and hiring managers are walking through the process there's even a part on the requisition as they're thinking about who they're going to interview reminding them again how many candidates of color did you interview as another reminder to make sure that we're consistently reminding them this is the work this is what we need to be focusing on making sure that we're consistently bringing that to the Forefront as they're walking through the next slide that I kind of want to point out and walk through is some of the retention data so we don't have the retention data for this year as we're closing out the end of the 23 24 year

040so I'm looking forward to getting that to see how those numbers were ref but one of the things we're doing is you know when we think about retention we're looking at how you know at what rate our staff turning over and why so we are able to really kind of hone in and understand the you know the retention rate and the turnover rate of the different groups and here on this slide we have it broken down by each different group of employees so you got Asian black africanamerican Hawaiian so this shows one thing that we consistent ly look for from year to year is looking at that retention rate and that turnover rate to make sure that there's not something that's sticking out is there a certain group or demographic of staff that is consistently

041turning over and we're not really seeing that from our data now we know some of the perspectives are a little bit different but according to the data and as you know as people are turning over uh it it's not one group particular that's having a higher turnover rate now if you look at some of the numbers where you see like on the ground shop on the bottom when it's by location yes the the turnover rate is higher there but it's when you only have six sap and two turnover it's going to definitely increase that percentage you click all right okay so our what we've uh committed to within our strategic plan was to engage at least 50% of our staff of color through a digital and inperson opportuni so what that culminated to was a

042a digital survey that was sent out to our staff where we prompted them to um respond about their experiences within SLP and I believe you have seen that uh presentation earlier this year so I'm not covering that point of the data um just what has come after that which was following the survey some of our next steps included planning for an in-person opportunity to present our current re some of the information that um Jason shared and then some of the information that Dr star has shared um around that survey information um so we took that as an opportunity to bring our staff together and based off of the experience of going through this we did seek out staff involvement to develop that experience so there's a lot of Staff staff voice um throughout that as

043well so this was this was the initial process was cabinet came together reviewed the initial survey data um thought about some different ideas of how could we do an in-person opportunity with our staff um Communications sent out another survey a different type of survey one for would you be interested in participating in this group we had about 20 people who expressed interest in participating in the next step of coming together to do a type of half day opportunity where they could again learn more about the data that we collected and do some idea generation of what kindes of strategies would you like to see us move forward which would is the next step of our um of our strategic plan was um bringing together 10% of our staff to do this and provide um at

044this point where we're now in the stage of what are the three strategies that we're going to work on implementing for this next year um so what ended up these were our meeting outcomes generated by our staff and our cabinet of what we were hoping to do during that session so build a shared understanding of what strategic priority work number two is um developing that retention strategy that amplifies right our our staff voices and growing in community to build solidarity support and environment that helps achieve the mission and that third piece really came out of some of our conversations and what we had been learning from the feedback of the staff who wanted to participate in the session was there there were things that came up for people and the history of um racialized experiences

045of working within our district that needed to be addressed so that was going to become a component of how we built out the space um so one of the things that we ended up doing was we actually had two groups come together so one of them was specifically for our leaders of color and the other group was for our staff of color because we learned that the um it wasn't necessarily a learning moment but what we had heard was the presence of whiteness that comes up in leadership uh can make it so that staff don't necessarily feel safe to say what my truth is while my supervisor is sitting in the same room with me so we had to really think about what does this happen half day um half day event look like for

046us so both groups convened separately to do certain activities that included discussion points around what uh what was coming up for people also what kinds of things would you need to feel supported within the district so we ask some different questions to get to some outcomes so these are so I'll go through a couple of the questions that we prompted um and I do have more feedback than what's here I just put I was really top level in what I put into the presentation so um when we asked our staff of Color Group what would help make you want to stay within SLP relationships is the top thing it's actually one of the top things that we saw within the survey too of what keeps people here is having um having a relationship or and

047having truthful honest conversations feeling connected are really important so and feeling that support we know is is true to most people within their experiences uh another thing that was really important and we saw this on both our staff of color and leaders of color is accountability and action and with the written feedback I think we could look even further up what does that accountability look like because I think that accountability may look like different things to people but overall people wanted to see like some type of action and follow through on the concerns that they're bringing up so so if if uh someone went to their supervisor and said I have this type of issue and it just was ended right there in that conversation it didn't feel like they were getting the support they

048needed so those are just I'm speaking broadly to some of the conversation that came up um courageous leadership and Equity as another big area so uh I think we will see that maybe come through potential strategies is additional training and we do things like courageous ation and from Beyond the diversity um there are still lots of people who haven't had that experience um and we'd like to have more people participate in different um Equity related training that could help support that area so from our leaders of color uh again I I know I mentioned the accountability and action but support and recognition was a big a big topic I know there are other leaders who speak to that particular conversation um at great depth but having that would be helpful for them to be successful

049uh and likewise anti-racist allyship so when we consider relationships with white colleagues thinking about how are we providing um our white colleagues with the support that they need to provide support within an equity framework so I put together just a couple of the verbatim responses that people had for when we consider the dreams for the future and this is across both the staff and leader group um but and we can go through them but staff that actually feel comfortable and confident in speaking their actual truth accountability for white colleagues to do the interruption of white supremacy work and that all staff feels safe and a sense of belonging so I think these remarks also fit within the things that people need to feel supportive to stay within SLP as well so I just put together

050based off of again the themes of what we were seeing what could it look like to have these steps implemented um so training there's discussions about a white white excuse me a white Ally group where white individuals could come together and learn from each other on how to provide support to their colleagues um if there are additional administrative practices um some of the things that came up is like could we be asking we do have some already um structured interviewed questions that get at the heart of equity for example like are there other practices that we could Implement within our process um that could be helpful for ensuring the equities built throughout um healing was a big entity across both so what does healing and restorative justice look like we I think in SLP we

051do it extremely well for what we do with our students um I think there's an opportunity to be doing more within our staff uh and that may be helpful so and another one is shared responsibility so we're all in the work together and I think there's generally a feeling of how do we really get that sense that everyone is really buying into what we're doing what we're trying to accomplish within this so I know I shared that our next steps are going to be to implement at least three of these strategies that came from this session um I can share too that the group of about 20 people who came together have expressed interest in continuing on this journey which is amazing um I at this moment in time our hope is to bring in

052Dr Hines to help culminate some of the next steps of what these strategies look like so at this point she's been brought into the loop of what the session looked like we provided her with the opportunity to participate and at the time based off of what we were hearing from our staff that that may not have been the the most helpful at that moment in that in the next phase that's when we can provide the feedback to her to help determine where we go where we going from here um so I'm I'm excited to see that this is a priority that we're committed to to pursuing for this next year year um and I think the the next steps that we will work to together are going to help us build out a solid retention

053strategy right here's your next opportunity to ask questions and I know that Dr Davis had a question with other people too yeah my question is for both areas and it's generally um I'm hearing you say that these are going to be our Focus areas going into the next year um I'm I'm curious if you could talk a little bit about what measures you're using to determine if we're making progress right and sort of how you're thinking about that going into the next year I see like for example you all just talked actually you're just talking about the implementing three recommended practices right and um I know you all heard me talk about this before in this space but how do we make sure that we're sustaining the work right and how are we holding ourselves

054accountable to um measurable change I can start that um so again I I'm I'll speak to what we committed to Via the Strategic plan right which was to accomplish these next three strategies and build that as part of a protection plan as far as accountability me that's one of the things that I think we need to build as a part of it so like I will own that I'm committed to ensuring that we follow through so it's not just so let me share some of the feedback that we had received from our engagement session with staff which was a fear that we were just going to drop the ball we were going to say we're doing this we committed to these strategies and that's it who does it live with right so I think once

055we determine what the three strategies are we'll have to include some updates right including something like update the board at a six month period to say where are we where we at on this um and it's hard to say without knowing what the strategies are but there will be a way to ensure that we follow through on it um so I think when we communicate out what those strategies will be it will need to include how are we staying accountable for it um which I'm I'm personally committed to because it's also a commitment I made to the staff group that was present for that dat um what it exactly looks like to maintain that commitment I it's unclear to me at the moment because we haven't determined the strategies um so I think I started

056to to talk about it I think with the care team work and cultur relevant literacy what really stuck out to me especially with this um second round of kind of going through the documentation um is that there's so much Rich qualitative data um and I know Dr I always talk about like trying to build this uh culture of data that's not just the numbers it's not just you know what they do on the MCA we love looking at student artifacts and student work and I would love to just get into the buildings more um and that's why I was talking about kind of like doing some observations and really meeting with these teams but like I didn't get any examples of student work um I got like the the the tempate or whatever but I'm

057super curious to um really dig into like the student artifacts um some more we did a bit of that last year um when we were looking at culturally relevant literacy but I think that it's to the qualitative richness of what is going on and how to capture that it's not always real predictable you dig in and you kind of see what you can find to tell the story but I'm wondering if Dr l or Dr you have any um additional thoughts on that um just like when we were talking about um continue continuing on with these priorities I know it was discussed at cabinet a bit um and then if there was any additional thoughts on like metrics yeah I think metrics I'm I'm a by training mixed methods researcher so I love qualitative and

058quantitative I think we need all different puzzle pieces to help us understand what's happening in our story um of course we have our world's best Workforce report we report on metrics there monthly data team meetings where we take a look at our continuous Improvement plans and then we also study metrics and fast Bridge reading fluency data at the elementary sites we look at MCA we look at GPA distribution attendance we look at all of these different things um but again going back to the richness of the Care team process itself as being a really strong professional development opportunity that student data work in those conversations and stories of what teachers are gaining from the process is really important in addition to the world's best Workforce reported metrics and other things that we report as a

059part of our literacy um plan report data yeah thank you for that I I also agree that the combination of qualitative and quantitative data is critical right um You can't get a complete picture I think uh it would be helpful for me at some point in the next year if we could try and put it this this is very qualitative um or at least it feels that way to me and which is great and I feel like I have a much clearer understanding of what's Happening um but it would be helpful to sort of pair that with how it's impacting quantitative side of things so that we can sort of see that information together that would be something that as we continue in this work in the next year would be really helpful yeah thank

060you questions comments yeah um I I would Echo what director Davis asked for as well um and I had a couple questions um I just had a Wonder with the cycle one being first semester cycle do being second semester does that give enough time to implement changes or are we like in a continuous uh it it definitely feels like a lot of a cycle 2 is definitely um either continuation or or building a bit and sort of especially in the elementary school it seemed like they were it was like continuation also the middle school I did see more variety just in well in general across the high school teams um and then and then across the Cycles but it I mean I think that's a good question I think a lot of it is they

061sort of make a plan for the year and then try to do two different processes um but they often do seem kind of a continuation um but I'm not sure like what how much guidance they get for like in terms of go ahead well I would also add that in action research because this collaborative action research for Equity the two main questions in action action research is what's happening and why is it happening right in terms of as a teacher I'm trying to understand why is it that my metrics maybe it's my um maybe it's uh students that are completing work if I'm a middle school I go back to being a middle school math teacher students that are completing work how many of my students are turning in assignments and when I disaggregate that

062data by Race For example why is it that certain students might not be turning in assignments at the rate of other groups and so then as I'm understanding what is happening now I want to implement strategies to see if it's making a difference and so the nature of action research then maybe cycle two is an enhancement of cycle one so that's why I think that there's so much overlap when we look at two action research Cycles cuz just want to keep getting better for the group of students that I have in front of them yeah I wonder also to maybe director dav's point before if we could maybe see some of that like those those questions that come up around like as an example like for if there's um certain demographics that are turning their

063their homework and how that comes into the care team questions analysis that goes from that yeah I would love to ask them what their process is for coming up with the questions each cycle and um dig into that a bit yeah cuz I was uh just part of my next question was kind of a it feels like maybe it should be a conern maybe it's not that criticality didn't show up in either of the Cycles as it as its own uh direct link to one of the five Pursuits um just thinking about you know what kind of culture we want to build in SLP and with anti-sexism and anti racism being really key attributes to CR criticality um um I'm just I'm wondering if I should be concerned that it's not showing up in in

064the cycle of questions I I would offer as somebody who's attended learning walks all year in every building including from early learning to high school um one of the things that I've seen is lessons around criticality even if it's not explicitly a care cycle question which gave me a lot of confidence I'm always thinking both as a parent and as an educator I have a lot of privilege because I get to see the richness of what's happening in our schools all the time so when it's not addressed explicitly as a care cycle research question because I've had the experience of being in every building at every level I just feel like I'm not as I don't think it's not being taught I think it's just not an explicit care question for sure I do think

065there are at the same time there is more opportunities to increase that for sure yeah thank you um and then I just have one question on the on the cycle or the priority number two MH um as far as the uh the three uh recommended practices that we decide to go with do you have a timeline and when we might decide what those are I would imagine that we will decide those by the end of summer because we will need to be in a position before school year to really get us rolling uh and I know I I mentioned this is that Dr Hines has been broughten to the loop of this she has not fully been brief briefed into the next phase of this but I'm I would imagine that by by the start

066of the school year we will really need to have something in place so I would be expecting something by then great thank you there questions comments um I know that um I don't know if I remember if I brought this up last time I went to a presentation msba conference and they talking about retention and and now I can't remember what they called them but they were I just wanted to show that for staff color they were talking about doing something that were like retention interviews or something like that I don't know if you've heard of that concept I see some head or something like that but that you're not just waiting to people leave but you're checking in with people along the cycle to say like why are you staying or how you know

067what are some of the things that you could be doing and so I might have some more information about it at least what school this was and CU I'm blanking on that too but that was just one other thought that I that I had there I don't know how much of you guys have come across that but otherwise this is really and I really appreciate this we get um I think what I'm hearing through some of my colleagues on the board here too is a little bit of what we hear from parents um like we want to see the data we want to see some information and so some of the things that we're talking about is because people like we're curious I think and also we want to be able to show that show

068that back to the community and say this is how it's working or this is you know some of the some of the evidence too so this is really great work and we're really appreciate out here thank you so much for joining us for our last board meeting of the 2024 like weeks we see us all right great thank you very much um next item up on the agenda is presented by me it is um msba invoice for student superintendent search this um we had a we got our Ino from msba this was for the superintendent search that landed us with Dr Hines we know that through the process of of doing that work um that uh it was not a perfect process and that we we had a little bit of a rope bump that

069caus some harm and um so I uh that was brought to me and shared by some board members and I talked to msba about it and um and what they offered to do was to reduce the um our invoice by 10% for that for that initial sort of part of the um search process and um so I that seemed like a pretty reasonable way to acknowledge some of the things that had happened there um and U I know that they've done a lot of other work for us that has not been built but this was um exclusively focusing on the um invoice Poli admin so I don't know if there's comments from anybody else on that board this is uh a action agenda item it's just sharing it okay well thank you for bringing that

070forward and um we'll make sure that that invoice then gets paid must be uh next item on the agenda 6C uh we have first reading of policy 613 graduation requirements and um this is uh coming from uh director Davis our board director and posy committee chair thank you um I'm actually going to kick this over to Dr Maguire just to make her really work at her last board meeting with us um so this is a policy related to our graduation requirements and it was very out of date it had not been updated since 2006 um so way behind I know it took a lot of work for Dr Maguire and others to work on this and so I'll just pass it over for you to share what you what you've done here thank you director

071Davis um board members you might recall that director Davis and I had a goal to get through as many policies as we could over the last few months specifically policies related to the 2023 legislative session you had taken action on some but there's still quite a list that have to be addressed from the 2023 legislative session right not 2024 the 2023 uh this was one of them that had some updates but ours had uh not been updated since 20 6 so we were uh certainly there was some obsolute language for example like a basic stand chest so there are still some policies on your list to get at some opportunities that you have from the 2023 legislative session those will be coming forward I'm sure in next months and so forth key changes for this

072particular policy include uh number one elimination of obsolete language and you can see a prime example of that in the very first sentence of the general statement of policy which re uh reflects a Minnesota graduation basic standards test which of course hasn't been in place for a very long time uh so we update we eliminated obsolete language we updated definitions um we ensured that the Minnesota state minimum requirements are reflected in the policy and we updated the statutory references so this is just the first reading now you have a period of time and Dr duppy has worked um closely with the high school staff to help go through this multiple times with a fine tube comb to make sure that what we're saying about our credits for example are accurate so we'll have a period

073of time now over the summer uh to review it again and then uh tentatively we've placed it on your August 14th agenda Dr hin will be here then uh for seconde but Dr will have some time this summer also keep looking at High School staff was just first today mean we make our directors for over summer we don't give them the summers7 what what I thought oh my gosh this is I'm just learning I'm just kidding I'm just kidding okay great were there questions or comments people had and my my this is not about this policy but it's just about the procedure for I saw that the msba policy Services newsletter just came out like a few days ago with the items for the 24 session but I but it had a note in it

074that reminded me that we can uh if there's things that only need statutory updates we can approve those one correct so and and we have and we have okay so that that is a strategy we should be pursuing that we want to continue to look at as it relates to this that we have done that some other ones um you know there's just we had a lot happening this year that we had to but I know not a criticism of you all have done to know you know I mean we we're we're we're years behind it's not we're not a year behind we're years behind and so if that is a strategy to help us keep catch up on like statory language then we should use and we should clarify when we say that we're

075years behind there schools are still graduating people all sorts of things here just in code in our policy that then is used to be a guiding document for other things things might be a little outdated but we we are changing our practices regardless where we stand policy but it's sort of weird to not have those policies in place and to have all the practices in place especially because the practices could be off from the policy we have a lot of policies yeah the other thing I would offer to you all that might make you feel a little bit better is you're not alone right working on school board policy for school districts is a challenging thing in particular small school districts that do not have their own general counsel whose part of their job is

076to work on Schoolboard policy but even even in the larger school districts where they have a general counsel to do this working on policy is tedious and right because you have to involve like you can't change the high school graduation policy without talking to the high school team and the teaching and learning team right so there's people that you have to include and think about and so forth even if it's statutory language so I don't want you to feel too bad because you're you're not in um horrible shape compared to other school districts certainly we're doing the same patch up into right now it's a tedious thing and you're you're doing well and I want to say thank you to you Kate because we really we were in this together you know we we just

077had a lot of pep talks with each other throughout this process um it is tedious and I'm grateful for the progress that we made and so folks know I did have a meeting with Dr Hines yesterday and so I think we're going to have a good plan moving forward so we're going to get there I'm thinking there's got be like this cohort of retired superintendent that could help policies I mean come on there's got to be some people that could Jasmine also Jasmine Hankerson is going to be a great help she has a really um know high level of skill and is super organized and um she's going to be a great help and support too you done as well thank you okay so you have time to take a look at this and review

078it and we'll probably be hearing more about policies coming up in the next year so great thank you everybody consent agenda okay um so again this is a read through some of what's on the consent agenda before business items Personnel items minutes um and so it is recommended that the school board approved the consent agenda with the following business and Personnel items for June 25th 2024 school board meeting as present to have a motion thank you CIA do I have a second second by Taylor all those in favor can we can we just say can I just have a brief discussion point on the consent agenda which is I just always like to know our donations which is always on our consent agenda um and so just want to a note of gratitude to our

079donors um they're not always personally named on here so it's kind of hard to know who they are um we do have one individual personally named meline cus who donated period supplies thank you sorry I just that's okay yeah um we do donations do show up and they here there always that information is available for people who want to take a look in there we've talked a little bit about whether there's some discussion about whether you donation should be pulled from a consent agenda or not so that you could maybe more publicly acknowledge that but it is also just routine business item so I think as we look at agendas for next year and how we set things up I think that's fair game so that would be something to shap that so with me

080as well all right so we we had a motion in a second all those in favor say I hi I um any knows um passes 5 zero great okay next item on the agenda is Iowa Authority um this is um we'll have Dr McGuire talk about what this means when we say Iowa I would just offer that this really seriously makes it very official you are going to have a new superintendent and the Iowa designation is what is required by a number of these organizations Iowa is the person in the organization who determines the other leaders in the organization what physical access to make changes to all of the systems that help us interface with the uh government public entities so that's what an Iowa designation is and every time you have a new superintendent

081you must have a new Iowa designation so we have done this a couple times this right that's what I say every time I was going to say we hope that this is going to be all we need to do for the next three years here um so uh I'll do I'll move this and then um do I have a second on this second second by director Davis um is there any further discussion on this okay all those in favor say I I then impos pass it is 5 Z all right I think we get to bring up director Magnus next um right yes director Magnuson for like three items four items um but you know some of the stuff we've heard a little bit about before like the budget um and some other things here

082but I'm going to let's get a motion here um for this first it is recommended that the school board approve the fisal year 2025 budget as presented so there have a motion on that motion motion on that have second I'll second it okay uh discussion here and update here from director magon good evening Sher coock superintendent Maguire and members of the board I am here tonight to talk about the budget and I just wanted to say to the board if you feel like you're not sure what year it is you are taking action in three fiscal three different fiscal years tonight did you know that so on the consent agenda you taking action on activity for this fiscal year you're going to take action on next year's proposed budget and the ltfm the long-term facility

083maintenance sets the begins to set Levy processes for taxes payable in 2025 which is 26 school year so there you go um so the purpose tonight is to just review information nothing has changed from the last time we were together and I it occurred to me as I was listening um to the other presentation that I don't have a slide for the mission statement in here but I do want to remind the board and others that um what we do with our money is really support the mission statement and I'm proud of the work we're doing um to Center student voice in the work of the business office involving the community and now students um actively in in our processes to set assumptions and talk about the budget you're going to learn hear a little

084bit more about our plans for next year as we start to manage this really tight budget that we're in and I do want to also say that my own personal racial Equity purpose um for my work um includes a belief that transparency around items that can be really compc licated is really important so it's important to me that this stuff be understandable to the board and to the community and that folks can be involved and included and this has been a a tough year and I have to say I don't feel like I've done a good enough job of keeping everyone informed on the way but we are on a path to to getting back to a place of normaly so I'm looking forward to that um just a reminder here we are with our

085budget planning timeline and here we are again um not only in three fiscal years but at the bottom of another fiscal year so um here we are on June 25th where we um finally at the last school board meeting as tradition holds by July legally by July 1st we have to have a budget in place by this for the school board and we generally do that as do most districts at the final school board meeting of the Year reminding the board that we had accepted some assumptions in a previous board meeting after ation with the finance advisory committee the one that is not um that we are not able to meet is the 8% fund balance we are proposing a budget that comes in less than 8% um with full knowledge that it's our job

086is to get that back together for next year and also a reminder that 8% is above our Schoolboard policy minimum of 6% we do have um another recommendation for finance advisory committee that we focus on expenditures in this next year I have experience in another District where we invited community members into that process and we're planning to do that this year invite students and community members um we are on the very beginnings of starting some budget manager meetings for next year we sent out a survey I've gotten some really great input already um as a result of that survey we're meeting individually with every budget manager in July sort of set a grounding and then we're just going to work our way through this um over the next year and hopefully will set a pattern

087for the future um some other budget assumptions that you know weren't a formal part of the the finance advisory assumptions just so you know that our special education Revenue increased um significantly in next for next year's budget to reflect the increase in expenditures that have occurred this year um employee contract settlements um reflect his hisorical patterns or settled contracts and every contract is settled you notice that in the budget book that every single one is settled for the next year thank you doc um director CER and we have been some market-based increases in operating costs transportation we do have an assumption that tries to hold that stable and we're actually meeting the Monday after next the Fourth of July week to start that conversation between student Support Services Park Adam transportation and start to talk

088about how we can um control those costs with our specialized Transportation there's increases in utilities to reflect sort of an unknown um 5 to 10% increases in certain line items um and then property and liability insurance is known we do have a $200,000 general fund contingency which everybody wants already and the fiscal year hasn't started so um this is just an overview of the budget again nothing has changed here you can see that the general fund the thing I want to highlight here is is the general fund balance decline which is mostly in areas that are outside of that unreserved so it's Capital items and one-time purchases that we have planned spend Downs of fund balance for for example the technology Levy and long-term facility maintenance where we've built up fund balance for specified projects

089but the unreserved fund balance itself while the dollar amount is going up the percentage is going down because as expenses rise that dollar amount is a smaller part of um proportion the school nutrition fund is declining just slightly um because we are not making any assumptions about increases in revenue for next year the community service fund is is holding and increasing slightly and The Debt Service fund will increase in a budget um and in actuality because we have to set a levy that um is 105% of what we actually have to spend and then we pay that that back through the levy process and I'll um talk more about that in September um this is just a you know a big picture of all the fund balances and the reason I put this in here

090is just to show you know this the six and 8% general fund balance is just a Tippy tip line up here in the general fund so even within the general fund there's so many restricted Revenue sources not to mention the school nutrition fund the community service fund and so on and I'll talk you through those in a little bit the first um slide is just the top portion that shows the general fund the 7.5% 56% just really points back to these two fund balances right here um the rest of these are either reserved because the board has asked them to be reserved we've held a reserve for severance payments and we have to hold a reserve for prepaid that result for prepaid items that come out of the audit so for instance we're paying some

091bills already for next year and we have to hold fund balance for that when we close the books um and then there's all of these specialized categories of funding that we we try to not hold fund balances in them these that um so the three that we do hold fund balances in are capital related sort of the stuff purchasing that we try to make a plan for over time and you know the reality is that we have to use every penny of our specialized funding in order to maintain this budget we couldn't get away with holding a fund balance because it would just drag down Beyond assign fund balance more the school nutrition fund um we have a plan for Decline and that's mostly because we don't um have any um assumptions about increased Revenue

092we do have hopes that Revenue will increase but that's not numerical so we couldn't put a dollar amount on Hope at this point we're holding until we know more about the results of the cafeteria um and as folks settle more into the routine of um Universal free meals expenditures are going up of course for um the majority of the school nutrition fund is stuff and not people so it's Food Supplies so we have a larger increase in food supplies particularly as we try to do more fresh meals and we have we're holding some space to um be fully staffed for next year so that's important for school nutrition the community service fund budget is vetted by the community service advisory committee and is holding strong these are sort of the Lesser known of of the

093budgets um the biggest one the only one that we budget for in these lesser known areas are Debt Service because it feels more like an operating fund although it's not an operating fund because we make big payments out of that that are planned for um we don't budget in the building construction fund because it's nearly impossible to catch June 30th in a budget and not have to spend half of a board meeting explaining to board members why we didn't catch it at the right time so we know that we have this bond issue that um that we are limited to spending within um there's the internal service fund is important to us we don't try to make a budget that's where we hold our self funded dental and medical um we anticipate we'll continue to

094build our balance particularly in the self-funded medical um fund we are starting to see that we're using um more of our self-funded Dental we have an increased rates in Dental for years we might have to do that um in future years um although we have a pretty healthy fund balance um so we talked about that with our insurance our staff Insurance committee the opep trust fund is a present value calculation that's important we do have a opad trust in place um the dollar amount which is not reflected here this is the present value of future um payments for post-employment benefits that are no longer in any employee contracts for new employees that are coming on but we have several active employees who still are retiring with grand person um benefits that are no longer in

095place and I do want to just point out um in our custodial fund we hold a scholarship for the Voss family um who make scholarships and pays for actually our internship program out of out of their and other Career and Technical type programming is what their focus is we also hold in our custodial fund um the balance for children first um and by the end of this fiscal year we fully anticipate um that our ending fund balance in in the children first fund will be over $300,000 in the negative we don't at this point know whether we'll receive the revenue that um is has been received and dedicated to this negative balance so we'll be back talking about that and I'm in conversation with the Auditors as as late as yesterday just talking about how

096we want to handle that negative balance at the end of the year we're very hopeful that children first will um follow through with their commitment to pay us by July 31st so um I just want the board to be aware of that that might be something as early as before we close the books for fiscal year 2024 we might need to make a transfer from the general fund which will decrease our fund balance and alternative is that we might set that up as a receivable in in anticipation it sort of depends on how how confident we feel that we will be paid and the Auditors will be looking for markers of that um so I just want you to be aware that that um conversation will be coming because we need board approval to transfer

097funds and that'll be you know after September 1st can I inter with the timing question on that because then we're supposed to close the books by July 31st but you said not till September yeah so we close the books the year ends the fiscal year ends on um June 30th so any cash or Revenue that's received and in hand has to be booked but if we have anticipation of funds that are owed to us you set them up as what's called a receivable in count world like we know that money's coming and it's attributable to last year so we're required to book it into the fiscal year where it's attributable so for instance last year we didn't receive our funds um through Park nicholet the fiscal Revenue host until later in the fall once I

098got assurance and the books weren't closed yet so once I got Assurance in the form of a letter from Park nickolet we were able to book a receivable into the previous year if we can't I mean I hope it as a receip exactly that's the hope but if we can't do we have to meet before the end of July to the trans we can make that fund transfer because the books we won't officially be audited until October so we'll have time to continue to make journal entries and it takes us several weeks after the end of a fiscal year to work through all the details in fact I left the team upstairs working on audit stuff so thank you yeah so I just want that's a you know a big question mark that we have

099right now so I'm just going to talk a little bit about revenues and then a little bit about expenses the general fund revenue is budgeted to go up by nearly 5% the majority of that increase um is special education Revenue there is an increase in the funding formula in state law Almost 100% offset by an anticipated decline in enrollment for next year um the school nutrition fund as I said are just holding on our budget um and we will want to make an update to that um in you know in next year's budget once we know more the community service fund this is anticipating um additional revenues through programs and The Debt Service fund is what it is basically flat this is just a visual to show you that of you know of all of

100the funds that we budget for the general fund is where the the work course of the of the of the school district Finance that's where most of our operations occur here's some of the detail around Revenue just to to give an idea of of the proportions a large um portion of our revenues come from property taxes within the general fund some of them vter approved some of them they're equalized levies and that's the way you get the money is um it's a levy and if you want the money you have to um or it's a formula and if you want the money you have to Levy for it there's some local Revenue we do not um um the the revenue that's included here are um anticipated student fees and um interest earnings what we don't

101try to re um to budget for are gifts and donations which we did include in the midyear budget update so that's why you're seeing a decline there we don't try to make an anticipation because the revenue we receive is usually assigned to something that you have to spend so a budget would come in with both revenue and expenses when that time comes state revenue is going up that's driven by um uh special education I wanted to jump back property taxes are going up in two areas included in the general fund are the capital projects Levy for technology and um the inflationary increase um attributed to the voter well both of these are voter approved the voter approved operating referendum so you'll remember that from last Falls truth and Taxation hearing and then federal revenue is

102flat and this again just gives you sort of a visual of you know the Workhorse of the general fund is state aid that's why those legislative sessions are so important to us in our relationships with our legislators and property taxes um that we're very grateful to our community that continues to support us and then within that state aid portion this just shows you how special ed is becoming a larger and larger part of um our state aid 20 nearly a quarter of our state aid it comes through special education and we're very thankful for the 23 legislative session so a year ago and where the state aid funding formula was expanded and we are um reaping the fruits of that because the costs would go up regardless but now we have Revenue that's Rising um

103as well and then on the property taxes just to show proportionally that operating referendum is which is that voter approved unreserved funding sort of like the general education funding formula is 66% of the revenue that we receive within property taxes um and then the other one is the voter approved technology Levy so you know it's good to know that with within um property taxes in the general fund the two major sources are voter approved and supported by our community so expenditures look like this across the board general fund expenditures are only going up by 2 . 38% which might seem curious if salaries are we're settling contracts above 3% we do we're trying to contain costs within transportation and we don't increase budgets in areas outside of Staffing so folks have to continue to live

104within their means there we have an increase we talked about school nutrition community service and Debt Service they really just reflect um anticipated expenditures School nutrition looks a little high it's the food and it's people you know make making sure hoping that we're fully staffed or budgeting for a full staff and then again on the expenditure sh side it looks very similar and in the general fund here's some expenditure details so yes indeed the the salary and benefits are anticipated to go up by 3.38% um this flip between purchase services and supplies and equipment is really the way we budgeted for um department and site allocations we put it all into a general supplies or an instructional supplies code and then budget managers will begin to distribute that when we meet with them in July

105we're going to just we kind of just starting from square one we're going to build it back up um together so but overall that gives us a 2.38% increase again you know this is what the the general fund looks like salary and benefits um 75 76% which is typical of a school district I'm just trying to look at my note so I don't forget anything in purchase Services substitute teachers are in purchase Services tuition payments are in purchase Services transportation is a big line item that's in purchase services and most of our utilities except fuel oil is in it's a supply technically but the purchas you know the utilities that we purchase are there so that's a a big monster in the general fund as well and when you think about budget cutting in some

106ways that red chunk of the pie we can't really move you know those are things that we have to have these purchase type services so and then when you look at what's left in the budget is people or a little bitty bit of stuff that we buy so budget cuts are really difficult for school districts with this with this expenditure profile P could you talk about what programs would you would pay tuition for um 287 is there any other um there's some you know there's some other smaller s um that I can't even try to name for you right now the bulk of it is 287 tuition so you know there's a lot of work ahead of us in this budget and it's going to we'll roll up our sleevs and we'll get it done

107I have a ton of confidence in these groups of budget managers but we have some really great infrastructure in place we have a 10year voter approved operating referendum that was last approved in 2017 so there's a few years to go on that and as we discussed last time we have a a board approval for the for the next iteration of that we have a 10-year capital projects Levy that was recently approved that continues to grow over time um as our as our um that continues to grow over time and then we have long-term facilities maintenance funding that's in place you'll be approving that 10year plan tonight um and that's an important part of of what we do for deferred maintenance to keep it out of the general fund and we do have an opep trust

108in place and the board has begun a pay go Levy to continue to fund those um post employment benefits for um Grand personed employees um over time those are really important funding sources for us and so we know this F stuff we're going to need to we we've made Staffing adjustments to reflect enrollment projections and there's pressure um as we start to see enrollments come in to add staff and we have to be just be really patient about that because withdrawals also happen in the same period of time that we're adding students so um I would love to just St up for what we think might be coming but that's just not practical um or it's not feasible actually it's not even possible we have new Energy Efficiency every time we finish a construction project

109we've got better Windows we've got better lighting we've got better Energy Efficiency so that's going to help us to keep that remember that red piece of the pie you know if we can shrink that in any way that's going to help us um to build up that Staffing piece of the pie and then that self-funded medical and dental program it helps us to at the negotiating table to stabilize that cost source so that we we don't have to um give away funds in medical we can and Dental Programs we can keep those costs down we know we'll be doing ongoing Cost Containment that's going to be for me a big theme of the year just as we sit with budget managers every month what are we doing where are we spending money what can we

110do to stop this so that we can come in at 8% by the end of the year and then we will be facing budget reductions for fiscal year 2026 here's some next steps um we um are recommending that you approve this budget tonight and then um monthly we'll be meeting with budget managers and the finance advisory committee to review expenditures and I hope some board members who are on fac will join us in that and then as you know we'll be balancing these three fiscal years for a for a little while and so here's the proposed budget that we would ask that the board approve tonight this is a lot of information that I know that we' heard a few times too so um I don't know if there's any questions if anybody needs anything

111clarified at this point again for the community sake we've heard some of this stuff before this is a good comprehensive thing to watch but if you want to hear more about some of the stuff um go on YouTube find our board meetings and you'll hear a lot more of the details here too as well but yet still comprehensive tonight so any questions before we you've had a motion in a second I just I know we've talked about this before I think it's just worth saying again could you tell folks like what is for example the 1% what would be if we wanted to increase the fund balance by 1% how much that would cost oh you wanted me to be prepared with that so um 1% is probably around $150,000 yeah I guess the only

112other thing I'm going to add is that there's an article I didn't read it but um in detail but um about other districts other districts got same budget things one District that I read about saw the headline of but pretty prominent School District said they were cutting 15 staff of people 15 teachers um so it's some realities that a lot of schools are are facing right so appreciative of all the work you've done here situation and that be viewing some of that we are looking at Cost Cuts for next year so nobody should be surprised next year when we start reaching out and you say we have to cut across or hear the things that we want to hear about what are the priorities for you I think that came up in a parent meeting

113that I was having earlier this week and it was or last week it was sort of talking about well you know here are some of the things to realize here's why class sizes are like what you're seeing or what that benefit is in class sizes and stuff so anyways we can talk more about that another point I would like to just we've had a motion in a second so all those in favor say I I iOS that's it's 5 okay director Magnus tell us I'm going to make a motion here we're get a motion on this next thing it is recommended that the school board approve the fiscal year 2026 long-term facilities maintenance 10year plan for Independent School District 283 the our school district here as president do I have a motion to bring this

114forward thank you director Davis say second second second right director Casey all right yes so this um will be sent to the Department of Education tomorrow and it will be included in the work that we Supply over the summer to build the um tax levy um the levy limitation for taxes payable in 2025 so Jim mivan in our facilities Department continues to make 10-year estimates for long-term for deferred maintenance in several categories of funding and so that's what the expenditure um profile is and the revenue profile is based on pupil units and the ltfm the long-term facility maintenance deferred maintenance funding formula how much revenue we anticipate and then on the bottom of the expenditure page you can see what the fund balance might look like over time and given our current estimates we do

115end up with the negative fund balance by the 10th year but we will adjust for that um over time so this this Revenue um projection currently reflects a a declining enrollment for the district so lots of things will change on this the most important thing is that we're setting the levy for taxes payable in 25 with this if I stand corrected or if I'm correct here Rick magon this is thing that we capped at that some of our neighboring districts do not have a similar account on this the 25 top school districts 25 years ago or whatever some sort of exemption that we don't get so we have to recap and other schools can raise it and do all yes all right so we any other questions about this here then um we had much

116second all those in favor say I any post okay passes 5 Z all right now it is recommended that the school board approve the phisical year 2026 long-term facilities maintenance St your plan for independent school 287 is presented have a motion on that I'll move it second second by director um Anderson all right Patricia so um we along with 18 other there's 11 11 others 12 total okay 12 districts are um part of a Consortium intermediate District 287 you heard us talk about it a little bit with tuition but because they're a Consortium of districts they don't really have a taxing Authority so there's not a you know a taxing Authority and the way to get long-term facilities maintenance revenue is through taxation and so the the board the me of the boards of the

117member districts have to Levy their constituents on on behalf of this Consortium of districts so um every school district is having this motion you know in the in this month and so we in St Louis Park um Levy for a portion of the Deferred maintenance and obviously a school district like 287 has buildings and deferred maintenance so they um have access to deferred maintenance funding in that same way we are one of the 12 um taxing authorities that that raise the revenue on their behalf so this is um and each member district has to pass the resolution in order for 287 to get the revenue coming to them so that's um what's in front of you and the budget for ltfm is set by 287 as um the average of the two smallest districts in

118287 so West Tonka and Brooklyn Center I think are the two smallest and so the their ltfm um total for their District those two are averaged and then that is set as like the limit for the ltf for 287 so it's much smaller than ours if you look at the total I think it was it was a lot it's a lot smaller than ours as a whole um and then the the the contributions by E member district are um as a percentage of our basically our percentage of our percentage of our use of 287 so I think we're at like 5% pretty close to a bunch of other small districts I think I don't know somebody might be up to close to 20% but feel is at 20 % okay so that's the that's the

119biggest but and we're kind of in the in the middle to low but there's a bunch of us kind of right around that scene like single digits percentages so that is how we get um the number that we pay is calculated by that ratio of how much we use 287 relative to everybody else that's helpful and this summer they're working on a roof replacement at our building in Richfield and boilers at um North education center and I think they're working on Lighting in a different of places so same kind of things that we do here just smaller scale okay um so any other comments or questions okay um then all those in favor say I I any post passes um 5 Z okay micro purchase threshold recor Magnuson so this is what we understand to

120be annually required that we set our micro purchase threshold for federal programs at the school board and a micro purchase is just the things that don't require bids they don't require several quotes it's just a lower amount and um Federal um requirements under Federal um funding allow districts to go up to $50,000 the state of Minnesota caps us at $25,000 so we um we have to take the lesser of those so we are making a recommendation that we hold at $25,000 for our micro purchase threshold it's a complicated memo but that's you know the upshot of it and what it allows us to do is when the Auditors are upstairs you know sweeping through um the you know the random transactions that they sweep through if they pull a transaction we know that our board

121has given us authority to purchase either directly in the market for any up to $25,000 so we don't have to have so much documentation behind it I'm sorry I we didn't have a motion on this so I did not do that but is there a motion I'll move it okay a second second second director Davis okay any discussion any additional discussion questions about this okay all those in favor say I Hi 5 that's it done this school year and thank you um that brings us up to adap employee agreement Elementary principle um it is recommended that the school board approve the 20242 employee agreement for the new Elementary uh Principle as presented um do I have a motion on this bring It Forward I'll move it director Williams second second director Davis all right that

122brings you up to the table here Mr Lo yes um our assistant director resources tell us what this is all about yeah so we had uh a great selection process for the Peter Hobart principal um the position was posted on May 1st and closed on May 23rd um over the course of the first two weeks of may we gathered information from stakeholders and got feedback from um teachers staff at Peter Hobart we held a couple listening sessions for um staff and um and families as well and community members um on May 1st we conducted the first round of interviews and on June 5th we had the second round and the team selected Aon mson who is coming to us from Eden Prairie um working with Dr hin she had some experience working with him and

123was very excited for his instructional leadership and uh bringing him on board so he'll be a great addition to our principles all right you have any questions about the yes okay then all those um in favor say I any post pass zero okay our next one is um it is recommended that the school board approve the new 2024 26 uh director of communications contract that's pretended do we have a motion I'd like to move okay we have a motion on that I'll second that all right discussion and uh so similarly um we had the position posted on May 6 um it closed on June 3r we got a great candidate um or applicant pool um we narrow that down worked with Rachel and the team um we had interviews on June 13th and the team

124selected as our senior communication specialist and uh you know working with Dr Hines and knowing Ashen personally we're very excited for her and uh I'm very thrilled to be bringing this here to you this evening think we're excited I'm so excited I just I I mean we kind of insinuated earlier you know that we've been through a lot this year and and as part of our team of two Ashley has been absolutely critical and fantastic um in helping us say true to our mission through a bunch of um really difficult communication um times so I'm thrilled actually and not and I wasn't surprised to see the news congradulation um I think it's great to see retention like this too that you retain and also probably support our our staff to seek opportunities like this too

125when it comes so it's really great to have that and I think we're um we're glad for that and glad to have some of that consistency and I've asked and they will be refilling Ashley's old spot too because as a Communications person it's very important to me that we that I know that it's hard to do this work just one person um so I know that you need support in doing this work too so I'll be excited U when you get that support person as well um all right so we've had a motion in second uh any further discussion all those in favor say I iOS passes by zero actually are uh soon to be I mean we approved it but uh she communication senior specialist on the agenda is here um the next item

126is recomend at the school board approv Park Central operations center as the name for uh the building located between Central Community Center and St Lou Park well I'm excited to be your last action item of the day yeah so I'm gonna make I'm GNA get a motion on this and then so do we have a motion on this motion by director Anderson at second second second by director Williams all right now you can go ahead all right good evening board members I'm presenting this action item on behalf of director Rachel Hicks um the superintendent and administration is recommending the name Park Central operations center for the new building that is located between Central Community Center and St Louis Park High School while the building will be attached to the ground shop it will have its

127own address and is considered a separate building this building will house the IT department staff and will be used as a receiving Center in Warehouse it is slated to be completed no later than January 1st 2025 as part of policy 810 naming facilities we engage in relevant communities in this case the IT department staff and SLP district and school leaders in the naming process through two surveys survey takers were also able to submit their own names for consideration and there were two leading names and after discussion with leadership Park Central Operation Center is the administration's recommendation so we ask that the school board's action uh this evening is to approve the the name as part Central Operation Center for the new building any further discussion as long as it's not part Center Operation Center or

128something like that that would be a little confusing and kind of repetitive um okay so any further discussion no okay all right all those in favor say I I any post yes is 5 Z great okay that brings us up to Communications and transmittal what do we have for um any of these EVS here anything from anybody I have a I have a few things in that that I'll offer um first of all uh had um I met with some parents had some conversations with them talked about some of their concerns like we said at some things related to data and some things asking about stuff related to our strategic plan some interest and how to get involved in a legislative uh stuff if there's things that are broader than um what we can do

129here in our district and so I um told them a little bit about that and I'm willing to make some connections there um uh we had a meeting with our um with Dr Hines last week and had some talked a little bit about some expectations there and I think that was a really good conversation and it'll help us and I think we'll see some things as when we reconvene here this fall and how our board meetings are set up that reflect some some of the new directions that we're intending to take to um engage Community to have uh Stronger conversations to be able to reflect back to the community some of the information that they want to see as well so really um good conversation um then I thought I would provide a little update

130here on children's first um here so that um people understand where things are with that so um just to outline the school district has had a contractual relationship with Children First whereby the district served as the fiscal Host this means that the district paid for expenses incurred by children first and Children First was required to reimburse The District in full the park nicholet Foundation has served as the revenue host for children first which means it holds the donations grants funds and any other funds generated by children first Children First monitors its revenue and expenditures and only children first has the authority to transfer funds from the account at Park nicholet each year since fiscal year 2022 Children First has not transferred sufficient funds to the district to fully reimburse it by the end of the

131fcal year for fiscal year 2024 we expect the outstanding amount to be approximately $324,950 School District funds are public funds and as such we are governed by certain accounting and oversight requirements established by the Minnesota Department of Education those requirements are called the uniform accounting and Reporting standards uars under uars expenditure for Children First are recorded in the custodial fund which is basically a pass through account in which the district receives and distributes funds for an organization you regulation does not uh do not allow a school district to close out a fiscal year with a negative B balance in a custodial fund if there is a negative balance inbe will not accept the district's end of the year report which is leg required for November 30th which we've talked about a little bit here in

132the fiscal years 2022 and 23 the school district was able to handle the fact that the district had not been fully reimbursed for Children First expenditures through the offset of the deficit by a positive balance in another account with custodial fund MBE allowed the district to Clos its books for those fiscal years because there was a total positive balance in the custodial fund that will not be the case for fiscal year 2024 the size of the negative balance for Children First is too large Children First does not pay the outstanding amount the district will need to transfer money from the general fund which could result in needing to make expense reductions in other areas uh the district's attorney has been in communication with children's first attorney to resolve the financial issues as a compromise the

133district was willing to accept a lower total payment from Children First in exchange for a date certain prior to the end of the fiscal year for receipt of the payment unfortunately Children First did not accept that offer and we were not able to reach an agreement on alternative terms to resolve the financial issues therefore our attorney has notified the children person attorney that the full outstanding amount must be paid to the district by July 31st the park nicholet Foundation has informed the district that there are funds in the children person account that are available for payment to the district they have also informed us that those funds cannot be released without Children First authorization we are still hopeful that children first will satisfy its Financial Obligations to the district by July 31st the school board's

134action on April 16 to terminate the contractual relationship with Children First is based solely on our fiduciary duty to the district and our oversight of District money it's not indicative of any ill will toward anyone at children first or its Mission this is a financial problem we need to solve we understand that children first is in the process of establishing themselves it's a standalone nonprofit organization and we wish them well that transition um so I wanted to provide that update and then I wanted to end on a different note which was that I had the honor of um participating in the GED graduation um last week which was a great opportunity I know that uh director Casey has participated that in the past um I think what's amazing to see about that there were 33

135um adults who graduated that night 11 that were in attendance and we heard I meant to bring it um from from some student speakers and really sharing inspiring stories about the things that they've done to get where they're at including um one of the featured student speaker who talked about her own personal trauma of having um a friend who um had received his GED and they had made a promise that they were going to receive their geds and he was murdered um you know after he received hers but she stayed on and continued he and just hearing those stories of how people continue on a CER beer to get their meet their education goals is powerful and and this was just one of many stories there there were so many other stories there of people

136on their own Journeys and how they're you know how they've got to this point and where they're at and that they've achieved this goal so really inspiring information uh or event and um also got to hear from our mayor who was a featured speaker of that too who talked about um some of her own families experience with the GD so great opportunity I got to participate in two graduations this year I good blessed for for that opportunity so okay without anything else any other um updates from anybody then I will take a motion to attour so move okay moved by director Williams I will second that because I'm ready for this all to be done so all those in favor say I I anying opposed pass is 5 we are adjourned at 822 until August

13714th I believe it is and some different people at the stable