001I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Thank you all for being here. Uh, Mr. Clatt is with us via Zoom. Welcome, Dave. >> Hello. >> Um, any open forum? There are no open forum items this evening. I'll entertain a motion to approve today's agenda. >> So, move. >> Second. >> So, uh, we have a poll, uh, Danny Bryant, facility scheduler from the consent agenda. >> Okay. So that'll be taken off of consent agenda. Uh with that said, all in favor of approval of the agenda say I. >> Opposed. >> All right. Uh thank you for that. Um Paul, we have a review of our an approval of donations. Thank
002you, school board superintendent. Um so this month we've got quite a list of donations here. I'll try to run through um and recognize each donation that we've received. So, from the St. Paul and Minnesota Foundation, $5,000 towards our kindness retreat. Uh received concert donations from various donors um at our band and orchestra concerts. Um from Sherry Booster, $500 towards the Larry Lawrence Scholarship Fund. Uh Box Tops for Education donation to Hawthorne Elementary. Eagles Club, $20 towards our cheerleaders program, our cheerleading program. Uh the LESO, so our Lake View education, um PTO there, $500 towards the Tiger Fund snack program. Um Round Prairie Lutheran, $100 clothing for kids. Um Mayo Clinic, $6,000 tuition assistance for school readiness. Um Pro Manufacturing, $1,000 to Tiger Cub Childcare. um education foundation. We recognized the $10,000 donation at our last
003board meeting. And so here um is that donation towards our high school student activity fees. Uh the Blackbod Giving Fund, $28 going towards early learning uh special education. Boxtops for education again, uh this time the Southwest Middle School. And then Freeborn Mau uh roundup thousand dollars to the ALC Mapstar um lights and furniture. So thank you to our donors there. Thank you, Paul. Almost $25,000. It's nice. I entertain appro entertain a motion to approve the donations as presented. >> So move. >> Is there a second? >> A second. >> All right. Thank you. Any other discussion, comment? Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. All right. We'll move the consent item. I'll uh entertain a motion to approve the consent uh items as presented in your board packet. >> So moved. >> All
004right, Angie, is there a second? >> Second. >> All right, Kimberly. Um all in favor of >> Sorry, just got to make a point here. Um so for personal reasons related to the movement list, I'm going to abstain from voting on that one. >> Okay, Dave. Appreciate that. Thank you. Um, with that comment, all in favor of the consent items say I >> opposed. >> Thanks, Dave. Opposed. >> All right, those are approved. Reports. Uh, Dr. Hy. >> Sure. Just uh two items. Uh, we had W Architects and the district task force met um kind of for their fifth and and I will say not final time. Um, went through all the information. So they they're going to come forward with what we anticipate at least three recommendations if not what I call 3.5 because
005they have some questions in there but it's some info to put forward. What the task force has asked administration to do is put some costs and thought into uh some of their preliminary recommendations um and then present them back to the task force so they can kind of finalize uh to the school board um what they think uh the direction should be. Um we're going to put those together over the next couple of weeks and then we'll present those to the task force. So we anticipate maybe a mid-Marchch uh to maybe a little bit later March meeting uh with the task force. Um and then I anticipate the task force uh to come in April and present to all of you. Um and then um further anticipation for me is uh you'll probably say, "Okay,
006superintendent uh go talk to our families." So, we'll probably end up having been trying to think of the best way to do this. And I think the best way to do it is to just have a meeting at every school, um, elementary, middle, and high school, and just kind of go over what the recommendations are and then any further direction that you give me so we can elicit feedback, uh, from parents in the community. Um, and then we'll proceed forward with uh, our directions and what we want to do. So, then the second thing is, uh, just a reminder, I'll be out the rest of the week. um unique opportunity for several of our fourth and fifth grade students. They get to go play in what's called Squirt Internationals up in Fargo. Um so they're
007going to go up there and they trade pins and do all kinds of neat things and meet a lot of kids from not only just Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, North Dakota, but actually all over the United States. And there are some international teams, not only from Canada, but from Europe that come and play. So, it's kind of a a a neat a neat little adventure. Um I know those kids are really looking forward to it. So, but I can be accessed by phone. I'll be checking my email quite a bit. Um so, don't hesitate to call me if if there's any needs. So, thank you. >> All right. Thank you, Dr. Hy. We have board uh member updates. Davey, we'll start with you, sir. >> Sure. Um, so at the end of last month,
008I attended the Austin Albert Lee Area Special Education Cooperative Board Meeting. I had to write that one down because it's a mouthful. There's a lot there. Um, in that meeting, it was actually the first time I was able to attend that one. I think it was the first time I've had it since I've been a part of it. Um, Superintendent H was appointed the vice chairperson. I was appointed secretary in that one. And then there were some discussions with donations and everything in there, too. Uh we also had a teacher of the year committee meeting. Uh congrats to all the nominees there. Um and then just kind of on a personal note, I uh helped MC the Polar Plunge for the playground this weekend. Uh didn't have quite as many groups as we did, but
009we did have a lot of kids jump in this time from the uh Marcel martial arts studio. So it was kind of cool to see all the kids jump in together. Um but yeah, we still had a pretty good turnout for that and for the chili cookoff, too. >> That's it. >> And thanks Dave. Mary Joel. >> Uh I attended the Freeburn County Family Services Collaborative along with Dr. Hyle. Um and just again looking at mental health, discussing that in the county and looking at grants and it's a great committee. Uh read to fifth graders at Lake View a couple weeks ago for I Love to Read Month. That was fun. And then I uh today we had a finance committee meeting. Thank you Paul for all the detail in it. And Those are my
010committee reports. >> Thank you, Angie. >> Um, I didn't have any committees to report on, but I did spend all day last Tuesday in a custodian mediation session, which we'll talk more about in close session. Um, fascinating experience, and we have another round lined up for the end of March. >> Right. Thank you. Um, Kimberly Nelson, >> thank you. Um I haven't I wasn't able to attend the curriculum committee meeting um due to travel but one of my travels took me to New Orleans for the um uh American Association of Community Colleges Workforce Development Summit and um it's interesting because one of the sessions I went to was about creating entrepreneurs in the high school and promoting that as colleges for the high schools. And so it's so cool for us to see that we're
011we're expanding that at our high school. And then also a lot about pathways and and academy work. And so we're right on track of where where they think we should be. So that was that was just a nice reiteration of of the work we're doing. Um and then this Thursday I get to read at Lake View. So >> for score, >> right? Uh, congratulations to all of the teacher of the year nominations. I just went over the list in the paper I think couple weeks ago. A lot of familiar faces there. Good job. Uh, mock trial is doing well. I understand they're in the state competition which is good. Robotics team had an event not too long ago and did very well. Dan was the hero I think. Saved the day on technology. some issues
012as I recall. Uh Dr. Hy talked about task force. I attended a math committee meeting the next day on the 22nd of January. Uh district curriculum committee meeting uh attended along with Gary um uh at the at Hammerfield um education foundation. Uh we had a meeting on the 11th um of February and in addition to the contribution which you noted today, the board u approved a request for $5,000 from the early learning program and uh from the high school Tiger Pride uh had a request for $1,000 and we are funding that help fund that as well. um teacher remediation as you all know uh tomorrow uh on uh 7:00 in the morning. Looking forward to that. I also traveled uh to Maryland on the occasion of my grandson's performance in uh he was the snowman
013in Frozen or whatever. And it's I always enjoy going to any kind of an event in schools uh you know outside of this one and I get to talk to administrators, teachers, coaches and uh it's fun to compare. That's it. >> All right. Thank you, Neil. I took in some um hockey games and uh the robotics competition on Saturday. It's just a great experience. We had two alumni um our graduates last year that MCEd uh and and volunteered their time. That was impressive to see uh finance committee, curriculum committee. I did uh lead the foundation meeting and I one other donation besides Tiger Pride and the uh early learning tuition assistance program. We also agreed to fund five yearbooks for students in need that might not be able to afford um that publication. Uh and
014then Neil's been very busy writing big scholarship checks uh for and I was it's always fun to be a part of that. On another personal note, the robotics team is speaking to our Lions Club uh this Thursday. I anticipate that we'll be donating to them again this year. And I do have to make one other note. As a board member of Civic Music, boy, we appreciate to be able to have access to that auditorium. Every time I go to Civic Music, people are commenting about that facility. I know we pay rent. Uh but it is a magnificent place to be present for that caliber of entertainment. So, thanks for that opportunity for civic music. >> We don't have students with us. once. Oh, Dave, I'm sorry. Don't give me a demerit, >> Mr. Glad. >>
015Never would do that. >> Thanks. >> Appreciate you being there. Yeah. Uh, nothing to report here. Thanks, Gary. >> Thanks, Dave. I don't see any students uh reporting. Do we have a teacher report? >> No. Okay. Thank you. And then principal report. Principal Larson. Good evening. Thanks so much for having me. Nice to see you, superintendent and school board members. So excited. And all you wonderful teachers glad here as well as as well as the directors. It's a great turnout. So this is an exciting evening. So as I was preparing for tonight, I thought what would you all like to know? Well, how about if I give you a glimpse of overview of what's happening at Wonderful Hulverson. Okay, now I get to do this clicker and let's see if I can do this. Here
016we go. So, being a teacher is no easy task. A teacher is a multitasking rockstar who lives to inspire and loves to encourage. Halverson teachers definitely bring their teacher magic. But first, we have to start with the social emotional learning of our students, right? Maslo before Bloom. We have to make sure that they're doing okay um social emotionally before they can reach their full academic potential. I'll press it one more time. So, how do we meet the social emotional learning of our needs of our students? Well, we start with a morning meeting. Check in with our students, see how they're doing. Maybe we'd follow with a read aloud, with a game, an activity, a share, so we can get to know and understand what our students are feeling that day better so we can meet
017their social emotional needs. We have a group called Child Find that meets on Thursday mornings that involves our MTSS um coach as well as our school social worker and really hone in on our individual students and what they need, what interventions they need to succeed and what we can do to set them up for success. We have a fabulous school social worker, Amy Browers, that we really lean in to ask her lots of questions and advice so we're meeting the needs of our students as well as evaluating our SA um Sabers data and moving forward with that to ensure that our individual students needs are being met. Um I attended a district inequities meeting really looking at district data and I left with a stomach ache after seeing all that the inequities right so then
018I really came back to my the instructional coach at Halverson as well as MTS coach and I said dive in let's find out what's at Halverson right so this is the Halverson data um but what really caught our attention is if you look at the top rows of the male and female right so looking at math being proficient males 59% with females only a 28% and reading 46% with females only being 29%. Before the pandemic, that gap had really closed. So, what happened? Um, I asked um Don where our instructional coach research it. What can you find out? What were the big changes? Well, the big changes were during the pandemic, girls tended to do typical female things, right? The cooking, cleaning, helping with the little siblings while the boys were busy exploring. That was
019one piece. Another piece of data that she found is that girls really struggle with multiple choice questions and how to solve those. Okay, so what are we going to do about it? Right, so our fifth our fourth grade team took on during um math tiger time. So when we have small groups for math, the um one teacher took all the boys while the other teacher took all the girls. And the teacher who took all the girls incorporated much more social emotional learning, much more being a leader, standing up, giving a risk. It's okay to make a mistake. Putting all those skills in it with the math as the other teacher continued on with the boys. We definitely have a greater group of boys than we do girls. Um, and then after so many weeks, then
020they flip-flop, right, and go through. But it was really interesting because I was in observing. So, I was in observing a few times. The first time I observed the girls, they were really like wiggly and really having a hard time paying attention and I couldn't figure it out. But then I thought, they're uncomfortable. They have nobody else to ask to to find that answer. Right. Second time I'm I'm in observing and Melinda Telamante says, "You got to see this. You got to see what's happening with the boys with what they're doing, right?" So, I quick go over to the boys group and I see what they're doing and they're doing some awesome things with fractions. And one of the boys says, "Yes, we're finally better than the girls." I'm like, "Think about that." Um, looking
021at our fast bridge data. So, remember when we're looking at the top, the light purple, that's our that's where we want our students to be, right? and then low risk, some risk, high risk as we go through. So, we want the biggest chunk at the top. This clicker isn't my friend tonight. I apologize. >> It's me. I have Dave on. So, I'm trying to >> Oh, got you. So, I'm okay. >> Okay. Sorry. Thanks for being attentive. All right. So, looking at our first grade, you can see on the left we have the e-reading. On the right, we have the e-math from fall to winter. still seeing some growth, which is good because we want more to be um moving on up and less to be at the bottom as we go through. I also
022included the number of students that were tested on the very bottom for you to see. Again, looking at second grade, Darcy, I'm kind of going through these kind of fast. Looking at our third grade data, looking at our fourth grade data, and last but not least, fifth grade data. So, definitely there's much more growth of what we need, right? Go ahead to the next one, Darcy. So, what do we do? Well, we dive in deeper. What else can we do? How can we better meet the needs of our students? So, I have the MTSS coach. She's going in. She's modeling intervention. She's checking for fidelity, making sure things are going well. The instructional coach is in there jumping in with two feet like what can we do? What else can we do to help to
023increase the scores? But then outside the walls of Halverson, what else can we do? So through bright spots, um, we found the data. So if you look carefully at this, you can see it's third grade reading proficiency, right? So we can see that prof reading proficiency on the vertical and on the horizontal. You can see from more affluent to less affluent, right? And looking through, you can really look through on this from each state and you can go down to each school district from like, oh, I really need to learn from somebody, right? Because we need to get better. So, where are we though? So, we are the larger dot there. So, for our reading proficiency, it was expected that we would be at 28%. Well, thank goodness we didn't land there. But actually, we
024landed at 41. Okay, good growth, but not good enough. We still have more work to do. So then I reached out to the school who was close to us but scored quite a bit higher which happened to be in Mano and I'm like what are you doing? What's your teacher magic? Like what's happening in your school? And they're like well actually for our literacy we have benchmark. We don't have anything new yet. We're not there yet. I'm like okay what are your third grade teachers doing? What does that look like? And they're like they're bringing the teacher magic. They know what the kids need. They know they're meeting their needs that way. They're pivoting and adjusting as needed. I'm like got it. So brought that back to the team and it's great because that's what
025they're working on right now. Um, besides that, meeting the social emotional needs of our students, we bring in Officer Hughes when needed, and he's been fabulous with presentations for our students. Um, and then talking about good old Whitten Wisdom, our new ELA curriculum, right? We really need to make sure that we're implementing it with integrity, making small changes until we really learn and we can better understand the curriculum, meeting the needs of our students, um, focusing with that end in mind, mastering our daily goals, and bringing in that teacher magic. What can we bring in to really get the kids excited about um wit and wisdom and about what they're learning? So, how do we do this? We partner read. We read with flashlights. We read stories aloud. We do turn and talks. Anything we
026can do to engage in stories and talk with each other about it. Um making the salad dressing is our final um unit in fifth grade. We don't just do it in our classroom. Nope. We do it in the cafeteria. We invite people to come in and taste test it. They dip a a toothpick in and try it and then they actually get salad and they can try it and make it so they can really experience it and the kids get so excited they create their own recipe. We bring things to life, right? Instead of just living um in the pun world, we bring it to life with our buff um buffet. Instead of um kindergarteners just sitting there, they're up and they're acting out their I can statement. They're moving increasing their body movement. And
027then on the 100th day of school, you can't help but use AI and put your face in there and see what you look like when you're 100. So when you look at that, think about the student engagement, right? And the excitement that they have and not only in our classrooms with ELA, but also in PE. These pictures of um the top two are kindergarteners, but in November doing small group rotations. Think about that. After only three months in school, they're able to rotate independently because that teacher magic, holding everybody accountable for what they need. And attendance. Attendance matters. We need our kids there to be able to learn, right? Right now we have 16 students out out of our 292 students on attendance contracts. That's 5%. Um, we're purposefully greeting our students, especially the ones
028with high absences. We're sharing the importance of attendance with all in our family newsletter. We're blasting it out. We're talking to students about it. What happens when you're not here? What happens when you're here? And then, of course, we're celebrating in class when we have all of our students there. We do paw winners. So kids when they go above and beyond, they get a special paw. They can put a paw in for a prize of their own and they can put it in a bucket and earn something for their class. Then we're talking empathy. We're rewarding our teachers. They get employee of the week. We're doing birthday shoutouts. They can go to the birthday or to the library to get their birthday book. We're all holding every single student to very high expectations. And that's
029how we can continue to succeed. Now going above and beyond. Look carefully. First of all, our end of the module, right? Looking through, they got to have the astronauts. They got to decorate them, put their face in them. Now, think about when they do that, how excited they are going to be about their writing, right? And now, look what they did as a final video. >> Where were you at 9:32 on the morning of July 16th, 1969? >> Astronauts report. It feels good. If you were Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins, or Ed Aldrin, you were 363 ft above launch pad 39A, locked into command. Guidance is internal. >> If you are one of the 463 operating technicians in firing room one, >> ignition previously unknown. >> 6 5 4 3 2 1 zero. All engine running.
030>> Liftoff. We have a liftoff. 32 minutes past the hour. Liftoff on Apollo 11. >> This was the flight to the moon. >> If you were Charles Lindberg watching from the VIP grand stand, >> look at the learning that can happen when we all work collaboratively together. Any questions or concerns for me? >> Awesome. Um, appreciate it. Also being there, I took a tour with Kim and she had students be tour guides and for the kids to be be able to articulate so much of their purpose, what they're working on, showing me um it was very impressive. So, thanks for all your work. >> Thank you. Yep. Thanks for coming. >> All right. Thank you all. >> Thank you very much. We're under uh now in our agenda curriculum and instruction and we have an
031action item concerning a New York City visual arts trip. Oh, you got it. >> I don't know it works. Sweet. Thank you. Alrighty. Well, first of all, thank you school board and superintendent Hy for having me this evening. I'm here to advocate for a school trip over spring break next year um to New York City with sixth and seventh grade students and a couple other parties which we'll get into in a little bit. First of all, um so it's like what's going on? It's like, well, I am collaborating with a gentleman through EF tours uh to provide students with a domestic trip to New York City for about 4 days. When would this be? This would be over spring break in uh 2027, so next school year. Um the dates are around March 15th through
03218th, but those are not solidified yet until we get better idea as to who would come and get numbers. Otherwise, you know, we're not going to buy tickets or anything specific. but it was intentionally picked over spring break so it doesn't interfere with classes and that kind of stuff. Anyways, so um New York City, I selected the specific ones like I am the visual art teacher um at Southwest Middle School. I've been working there for about 10 years and I've also been a huge traveler myself and I actually been to New York City three separate times. The first time I actually believe was through EF tours when I was in middle school and I was in band. We went there for a band uh connection as like conference and that kind of stuff which was
033really cool. Um second time was when I was actually in college visited a lot of the art studios and art uh museums. Got to see a Broadway show. And then my most recent time was this past fall. My sister ran the New York City Marathon. So I'm very familiar with New York in general which is part of the reason why I picked this trip versus some other itineraries that were available through EF tours. It's a place I'm familiar with. So they wouldn't have someone leading the group that's already crazy anxious about the environment. Okay. Subway systems are no issue for me. Anyways, uh why a visual arts trip? Well, we have a lot of kids that are as like that go in and out of my classroom that are fascinated by art and history and
034uh there's a lot of art museums in New York City that actually overlap with some of the things that we talk about in a curriculum already from Vincent Van Go's Starry Night to a couple other more uh more uh as more um western tradition from a couple hundred years ago. So, there's a lot of things that they can see from class actually in real life which is a crazy experience in itself seeing things in person. Now, uh, the cool thing about a trip like this is they'd be able to go and visit these things in a more safe environment. So, they would be with, you know, it's like, uh, parents are able to come and chaperone the trip, uh, myself and other, uh, district employees would have the opportunity to go on the trip as
035well. And they would also have a pre-planned schedule where if any hiccups and things happen, whether it's transportation wise or schedule-wise, I was like, that would be with the tour group, they would be taking care of it rather than us trying to figure it out. we can actually just go and enjoy the trip. Uh which is really wonderful. Now, ideally, we'd have about 35 students or students and adults that would go on this trip. So then the trip itself would be exclusive as in it's just Southwest Middle School people going on the trip. However, if we do happen to have a smaller party, we like they would pair us up with another middle school that'd be going on the same itinerary, which can also be a really cool opportunity as well, being able to um
036interact with another uh like other students from a different district of the same age with similar interests as well, which would be really neat. Um, for people that would like to participate through FF tours, they have a nice way of being able to fund raise where they don't have to pay everything upfront. they have a program to help slowly raise funds in order to go on the trips and they give us an idea of like how benchmark for every single month. So that's why we like to plan about a year in advance, sometimes a little bit more. So then students have enough time to as I plan and save back that money as well. So um like that's basically the gist of the trip in general. Um I'm just here to just advocate for it,
037answer any questions that you guys have about the trip. I did pass along a huge packet of information that I got through EF tours which goes through a lot of things such as like the little snippets of the itinerary um the security stuff insurance and that kind of things that might be questions that you guys may have and a lot of those things are in there um as well. The thing that I didn't notice participating in EF tours trip when I was in middle school but also when BJAC led one to Paris, Normandy and London back in 2019 is the added security element. So, I had no idea that they'd have someone always there making sure that the hotel you're staying in was secure. I was like, "Wow, that's kind of nice." I had no
038idea. But being a student and not knowing that that's happening, being a chaperon and not knowing that, that's actually pretty nice. But also, as you know, a parent that would have a child go on that trip, that lavie some stressors about, you know, going out and about. Um, I was like I mentioned that I'm a big traveler myself. When I introduce myself to uh my students the first day of class, I like to share like some fun facts like, "Oh, I really like to juggle and I collect bathroom selfies and hang them up in my bathroom. I also like to travel." And then I ask the kids like, "Where is like, you know, have you ever gone to another state or another country?" And there's so many kids that say no. And that can be
039really disheartening. So like where do you want to go? And that brings up some really fun conversations. And actually, New York City is one of those things that pops up every now and then. Kid would really like to go there because like you see like in Time Square for New Year's and a bunch of other things. You see the marathon on TV and it's a very unique place and traveling in general is really awesome to experience outside of our town, outside of our state and outside of our region to be able to get influenced by the food, the people. And you know, we live in a more rural type of area. you go to a metropolis and that's a big culture shock and uh that's really cool to experience the first time and you know
040it might inspire them to do some future traveling and if they offer some more trips at the high school they might be more excited about participating in something like that because they do something a little bit smaller that's a little bit shorter to sort of you know wiggle their way into that traveling aspect of things so >> very good any uh questions I appreciate the a packet with uh our board materials. That's pretty comprehensive. That was well done. >> Uh I'll entertain a motion then to approve a New York City trip for March of 2027. >> I don't think that's an action. >> It was listed as an action item. So >> moved. >> Okay, we have a motion. Is there a second? >> Second. >> All right, Neil. Any other questions, comments, discussion hearing?
041None. All in favor say I. I >> opposed. All right. Thank you. Uh efficiency or effective and efficient operations. We have an update on the American Indian parent advisory committee. >> All right. Good evening, school board. Superintendent Hy. Um I'm here this evening with Janet Serrano to give the American Indian Education Aid report of annual compliance to the school board. Good, Darcy. All right. So, American Indian Education Aid report annual compliance to the school board. This is not an action item. The vote of concurrence happens on the APAC committee. Um, but we are required to report annually. I shared in your board packet the uh detailed um focus areas, goals and action steps uh with progress in your board packet. >> No. Here you go. All right. Apac. Apac stands for American Indian Parent Advisory
042Committee. Uh the APAC assists in planning and preparing carrying out statutory requirements American Indian Education Aid. We meet a minimum of four times per year, sometimes more often if we have other work that needs to be done. And it's really to give voice to American Indian students to ensure their cultural and academic needs are met. The other thing included in your packet was the APAC roster. We do have currently have two American Indian parents on our APAC committee um as well as four other uh participants in the committee as well. And again, the roster was in your board packet. American Indian Education Aid has six focus areas. Um, each of those focus areas are required to have a measurable goal and an approved plan and then you have to report progress on them annually. So
043those areas are post-secary preparation, supporting academic achievement, um making curriculum relevant to needs and interests and including cultural heritage, providing positive reinforcement of self-image, developing intercultural awareness among students, parents and staff, and then supporting state and federal education and co-curricular programming. I just pulled up some noteworthy accomplishments out of the information that we shared with you. Uh so the first one was actually not in this year's American Indian Education Aid plan, but last year's it was our goal to hire an American Indian success coach. We did that midway through last year um and have been able to retain that individual for this school year as well. Uh so we do have a full-time American Indian success coach employed. Other noteworthy accomplishments uh through the support of that coach are we had three American Indian students
044identified as borderline truency. They have significantly improved their attendance and now are just on monitor status. We had 52 American Indian students receive cultural resource bags. Janet will speak more towards those cultural resource bags in a moment. Um, your packet that you received said that three students um, received driver's education. It was actually four. So, this is different. I will be making that adjustment before I submit the March 1st report. Um, juniors and seniors attended the college and career fair at the high school. And then another one of our goals was focused on improving grades for our um American Indian students. In semester 1 of last school year, we had 29 failing grades. In semester 1, and that is 6th through 12th grade. In semester 1 of this year, we had eight. So some really
045nice improvement in improved grades across our American Indian population. We got background music tonight, too. Um, next I'll let Janet speak to our cultural resource bags, what was included and how that went. >> Um, in the bag we had, um, beaded lanyards, right? >> Um, we had a water ball or water bottle. We had a sticker that was all American Indian. Um, the book Fry Bread right there is a Native American story about this story of fry bread. And so we decided to include a fry bread mix that you just add water to. And so the kids could take it home and they could make it with their parents cuz I noticed that some of our no students had never had fried bread. So that was like what? That's another story. Um, so yeah, that
046was kind of what we did with that culture resource bags. >> Every one of our cultural resource bags this year had three um, Native American um, literature in it. Every student received the fry bread book and then depending on what grade level the students are in, they received two additional um, books um, written by an American Indian author. And then we've created a rotation so that over the course of their 13 years um they'll receive a different book every year and we just build it through the rotation. Um and if we're able by the end each student will have 26 texts by American Indian authors >> if they start in kindergarten. >> Yes. >> This I want to go back one. Do you want to speak a little bit to the seven teachings and what
047we incorporated into the bags? How that tied together? >> So, if you look at like the different animals here, um on every water bottle there was a symbol. Um so like every student got a different symbol of the water bottle. Um so there's the bear, the wolf, the eagle, the buffalo. Um and then they also got the sticker um to match. they could put it on their notebook. Their notebook had it too, I believe. >> Um, so it's just the it's just teachings of the kind of the way we follow things and it's how to be a good person. So >> the uh cultural heritage piece is important um with the American Indian education plan and so tying in the seven grandfather teachings really helps with that self-image and social emotional growth of our American
048Indian students. Uh so that is included in each of our cultural resource bags annually. We've done it for two years now. Mhm. >> Um and then we did a fall field trip this year that Janet will speak to. >> Um so the first image is actually my son Ches um family business. It's called Frybird Express. Um Uncle Bob is near his end of his life. So I wanted to make sure that they got in there this year cuz it might have been his last year there. Um the some of the kids didn't never have they never had fried bread. So they were like, "What? This is awesome." They loved it. So they each got fried bread. We explored the POW grounds. Some of them had never been to Apollo. So that was interesting. Um that
049is Charlie Stately, one of my friends, Tepee. He puts out at Mano Pawa every year. And I'm wearing a traditional skirt there. So, um, that is when we went to the state park. That was just kind of to go see the buffalo and just kind of get out in nature. And then that is when we went to the where they hung the 38 Dakota men in Mano and it has a sign and it list all their names. So, that was kind of an emotional trip. It really was. But each of those components um was it accompanied by a teaching learning opportunity for the students again to learn more about um the cultural heritage and they you said many of them didn't know. >> No. >> So it was kind of nice just for them to
050just >> know a little bit more about their history. >> Yeah. So, um, as I stated, we have hired an American Indian success coach. Um, not only does Janet serve as our, um, Apac chair, um, but she also is our American Indian success coach for the district. So, I'll just let her speak to a little bit in the day in the life of supporting American Indian student. Right now, it's primarily at the high school. Um but we will be starting at Lake View this week um because that's our next um largest population in the district. >> So at the high school um I have different students that I work with. Um I can't really speak too much about them because we're in a in a public forum, but um I help them with their assignments
051if they have having a hard day. I will let you guys know that today was a hard day. Um I had a student ask me to sage him and I said yeah sure I don't have any problem with that and we can figure out a spot and he just want to be away from everybody. We went to the outdoor classroom. We smudged. He told me some personal things. You know it was it was good. And then he went back to class. I mean, we were in and out in 20 minutes and it was during flex, so he didn't miss any academic stuff today, which was good. But this is kind of like a daily thing that I've been seeing a lot. So, yeah, we'll see how it goes at Lake View because that's a younger
052age. And you know, I'm just going to start with the books and, you know, help them with their um studies and stuff like that. And then we can kind of build it up when they get in high school. Okay. >> All right. Oh, too far. So the APAC committee um again in your board packet is each of the goals and progress and whether or not they voted that that met um if the progress was sufficient. So on January 26th the committee voted concurrence. Um so tonight we just wanted to do the annual board report. >> Um I will have a signature at the end of the evening for you Gary and Dr. H. questions. Any questions for our presenters? All right. Thank you very much for the good work. >> Gary, I just want to
053make a comment. One more. >> Yeah. Janet, thank you for your work with the students. It's important work, so we appreciate it. >> Thanks again. All right. Um item uh 9.2, the revised budget for 2526. Paul, this is an action item for the board. All right. Thanks again, school board superintendent Hyle. Appreciate the time this evening to go through this year's revised budget. Um, annually we try to revise our budget at least one time uh before we get to the final budget. So, we will look to approve a budget, a revised budget this evening for this fiscal year. And then back again in June, uh we'll revisit the budget and uh get a when we're closer to the finish line, another snapshot and and revise it one more time this school year. So, okay. So,
054just a little bit of review and uh short discussion before we jump into a series of slides. Um our our district budget contains five main funds. Uh the general fund, food service fund, community service fund, building construction fund, and debt service fund. Uh and this evening, we will not see any significant revisions for community service or debt service fund, but we'll speak to that uh briefly when we get to that point in the presentation. So, as we uh work through this evening, um and just making sure I got control here, the steering wheel. So, um I'll call on you, Darcy, if I need some help on it. Okay. Um so, just want to reiterate, um that our enrollment is declining. Um we'll see that here in a moment in another slide. Um there's a couple
055main themes with this evening's uh revised budget that I think um I just want to get out there before we start looking at all the data. So, when we see enrollment declining, we will take um those projections for enrollment for this fiscal year, and we'll put them into a revenue projection model to try to determine what we will actually receive in revenues for this fiscal year. And we can do a pretty good job with that, especially after we get through our fall enrollment, that October one enrollment period. So, what we've seen is fewer students this year, and we'll see exactly kind of what we're reporting there um for this fiscal year, which means less revenue for the district. Um, overall with that, we are doing a a pretty good job with our expenditures. We're able
056to revise our budget and bring our expenditures down about $42,000. We'll see here in in a moment. But, um, what the challenge is is we're making adjustments um mainly due to less revenue and the revenue we are receiving increases in is in restricted funds. So, we'll try to highlight those as we go through the presentation this evening. Is that my mic or is that a different mic? Good. Okay. All right. So, um, one item to note, we had a stretch of about nine or 10 years of increasing enrollment, right? Where where things were good, right? When we're seeing more students, that means more revenue and then formulas were increasing at the same time. So, so it was a pretty good trend. Um now since about 2022 we're starting to see declining enrollment and we are
057still trying to adjust to those processes and that might be a bigger discussion for um later this evening or for another time. So this first slide here uh is just outlining our general fund revenue sources. Uh and as you can see highlighted at the bottom here our um what we're seeing from our adopted budget to our revised budget as presented today is a decrease in projected revenue of about $264,000. So that decrease in students um is leading to a decrease in what we're planning to see in total overall revenue. So a few highlights on the general fund as we look at this. Um reminder that we will not receive any new money for redact mandates. Um there will still be costs associated to the readact mandates uh for many years um but no new money.
058And um in the preliminary budget, we did not include line items for redact literacy aid or redact teacher compensation. As we assumed uh back in June that we would be burning up all the redact funds in fiscal year 25, there's a little bit of carryover in each of those funds as you can see on the spreadsheet uh you're provided. Um those would be next to line 456 and 457. Let me grab mine here too just to mention those. So, um, the carryover balance for read literacy aid was 26,452 and readact teacher compensation 2544. We will greatly exceed those amounts this year and we will be tracking what the unfunded portion of the readact will look like for years to come as well. So, that's probably a deeper discussion beyond this evening, but it's something to
059uh note that those uh funds are now listed and they weren't on the preliminary um as we had a carryover balance. Okay, our enrollment projection is down. Uh we adjusted our ADM down 101.9 for fiscal year 2526 this fiscal year. So we are adjusting or lowering that enrollment and that's leading to that um lower revenue as stated in a prior slide. All right. So um this is uh not encompassing everything but kind of the highlights the major themes from our revenue projections. So um each restricted fund is recalculated when we make our revised budget based on what we will see for aid and levy for each fund balance. So you notice that our total general fund revenue is down at 264,556. And there's three other categories here that were worth highlighting or discussion this evening.
060So our unassigned revenue, that's the big one here, is down 8 3,230 from our adopted budget back in June. Um but also um due to a law change, part of the reason that is down is um our ALC revenue has been more restricted. So to explain that in the past in past years um ALC funding, we've been able to take 10% of funding set for that's given to us for ALC revenue and set it aside into our unassigned fund. then we would have the option to use it for ALC or unassigned as necessary. Um that law changed this year where we need to take a 100% of ALC revenue and keep it in a restricted fund. So what you see is ALC revenue is up and unassigned revenue is down a little bit more than
061we would just if we had our revenue or enrollment decrease. So they kind of play together. Um the other portion with ALC revenue that we're seeing there is um and and this is you don't really see it because they go together but ALC revenue includes extended time and ALC. So extended time would be your afterchool program like Tiger Tales or summer school and um so for um you know after school remediation and um we had a little break in our um extended time programming for a short period this year and it's been picked up. So, we made some adjustments in the revenue calculator um just trying to estimate more realistically what those revenues would look like for the ALC. And then the third bullet point here would be your compensatory revenue. Um that is up
062about $222,000 from our preliminary budget. If you remember our discussion in June, um there were two proposals out there. Our governor had a proposal for how to use compensatory funds and how to dis uh disperse the funds. And there was also a hold harmless proposal um that was out there at the time that wasn't decided and we decided to take a more conservative approach and um we were winners in the compensatory game and we received more funding than we initially planned um just simply because we were being more conservative in the guessing game there. So we will see more revenue in this uh revised budget for compensatory u funds on your spreadsheet. compensatory is um called basic skills going back to when the type of funding source began. That's how it was referred. So that's
063class 441 on the spreadsheet. Okay. So highlights continued. So some other items of note. Uh and again these aren't all-encompassing uh but just picking out the major changes from our preliminary to our revised. Um something that's new for this year. came up really like after the start of this school year. MDE realized that there was a pool of money set aside in prior legislation for building and cyber security grants and they hadn't rolled it out yet. So there was a brief window of time for districts to apply for this funding and um we applied for our maximum amount of $80,000 and we received the full amount in that grant. So we have an increase in building and cyber security grant funds of $80,000. Um also um through legislation after we had approved our preliminary budget
064um the statute changed for student support personnel aid and school library aid. In one of those buckets we were winners and the other a loser. So some adjustments there worth noting with those two restricted funds as well. All right. So when we look at expenditures um we like to look at it from multiple lenses. Um overall we see a decrease in projected expenditures. So I noted we're in a good place this year with our expenditures and our usage of our funds. Um where we are able to draw back our planned expenditures about $42,000 in total. Um however that's not keeping pace with our loss of revenue, right? So we will look at expenditures in kind of three different lenses. Um this first one is by uh program codes. So you see a breakdown there in
065this table um of what programs might be considered. And if I also want to note that if you look at the total program expenses or the total expenditures here for our general fund of 59,745,253 that should tie out to the spreadsheet that you all have there for for our budget um under total general fund for revised 2526 budgeted expenditures. All right. So, another way we like to look at expenditures is by object code. So, the same total 59,745,000 for the 26 revised budget. Um, one thing that's important to note here and it it demonstrates that we're we've been um doing a good job with our our staffing decisions. We have a decrease in our salary and benefit. uh expenditures of 539,000. But if we look at the other um uh object codes here as well,
066um we see some increases that'll offset those. So, for example, our purchased services um we'll see an increase to our budget of about 375,000. There's a number of factors, a lot of various ups and downs that are happening throughout the year when we experience staffing uh changes or program changes. Um, so for example, if we um have a specialized staff member that we're not able to fill, a lot of times we'll reach out for a contracted service. Well, instead of seeing those expenditures and salaries and benefits, they might slide into something like your purchase services, right? So, um there's a lot that might happen there um where things are are changing up and down. So, um purchase services increased by 375,000. um all other categories increased by $121,13. So net a $42,000 decrease in expenditures.
067But just looking at it through another lens, one other item of note that's important when we look at this chart, um the b the pie chart shows that salaries and benefits makes up about 78 79% of our total expenditures. So the largest expenditure we have is our human our humans that um serve our district. So, uh, important to remember that. Um, couple other items with general fund. Um, I think we got a couple more two or three more slides here on the general fund before we move on to other fund categories. So, um, compensatory, we noted that there was an increase in revenue. We also, as we see a decrease in um, unassigned expenditures, we want to use the restricted funds to their best ability. And when we have appropriate expenditures that we could code
068to say compensatory or ALC or um another restricted fund, we should be doing that to maintain our fund balance. Um so for example, when we saw more compensatory revenue come in or ALC uh revenue increase or we don't have that 10% set aside for ALC, we need to make sure that we're coding those uh expenditures appropriately and that they're hitting those restricted funds so that we don't just deplete our unassigned. So we see some net changes on the right column here. Compensatory's net um fund balance will decrease 89,000 due to this uh change in revenue and expenditures. Our English learner fund balance will decrease 37,435. Our ALC fund balance is projected to increase 162,657. Our LTFM um fund balance for um uh class 467. Uh the revenue projections didn't change, but we reduced our expenditures
069by 91,424 to match our um board approved LTFM plan from July. So that one we're just dialing back to what the board has approved for that LTFM plan. So an increase in that fund balance and then of course our unassigned what's the impacts from um from um preliminary budget to um revised budget and we see we reduced revenue. We also reduced our expenditures in unassigned. So, a net increase in fund balance there on that or net impact of 196, um458. So, a couple items for discussion on um for before we get to final budget in June. So, some items that I I'd say we're just keeping an eye on um seeing higher expenditures from our activities. Um that goes from everything from um you know, transportation to supplies. Um, and we know that a lot
070of times there's booster commitments and we just want to make sure that as we come down the home stretch that everything's going to be net neutral and that we're meeting our budget targets, but certainly something that we may have some revisions for before we get to a final budget. Also, um, special services has done a good job this year when we talk about staffing. Um, we've been fairly netneutral and staffing costs or adjustments. Um and we reviewed those um budgets with executive director Ree as we look to make reductions in our district budgets. Special education um has some requirements uh mainly maintenance of effort and we need to keep an eye on that to ensure that we're meeting maintenance of effort essentially meaning we can't decrease funds. Um everything would have to be justified and
071and show that there isn't the same student need that was there prior. So we'll keep our eye on on special services. We do have a uh a large cross subsidy as a district of ours. Just ballpark. We spend about $15 million in special special services costs um annually and we get about 12 12 million uh or less in in funding for special services extended time. Um we noted there that we had a little interruption. So we're going to look at those adjustments we made for revenue for extended time and ensure that we're tracking well as the year comes along. What we'll do to ensure that we don't run into any budget items is when we do the final budget, we'll make sure that we just adjust our summer um programming budget accordingly um using only
072the funds we have available. And then of course unemployment um that's something that's ever changing and um we're seeing an increase to between term unemployment and what that means is summer unemployment. A few years back, um some professionals that weren't eligible for unemployment in the past uh became eligible and we've seen those costs increasing, which has been um it hasn't been a big um burden to us at this point because most of that has been reimbursible. But we know the bucket of funding from the state level is running dry and probably into next year we won't see reimbursement for between term unemployment. Okay. So the last uh general fund discussion um here is there is a class 460 a little bit of a change on your uh from preliminary to um revised budget. We made
073some uh prepaid purchases in fiscal year 25 and in working with our auditor and looking at um the best way to account for those purchases. Um, so for example, if we purchased a set of iPads in fiscal year 25, but they weren't intended to be used until fiscal year 26, really they should be accounted for in fiscal year 26. So what we do then is we we note that in a prepaid expenditure in a non-spendable class 460 and then as those expenditures are realized in the current fiscal year, we do a transfer out of that restricted 460 fund because we're realizing the expenditure in that year. So the impact of this is that it has a temporary um negative impact on your fund balance. So as we make a purchase and the two big ones
074that are are showing in our 460 class 460 fund balance our Wit and Wisdom curriculum purchase, it's about $74,000 a year and I think we have three more years of that purchase coming. And then we we purchased uh I believe $81,000 of iPads um for our onetoone devices um last year for this fiscal year as replacement uh units. And um so as those costs come off, this will will actually see a benefit to our fund balance. But in all reality, general fund fund balance, you see an 1196 projected fund balance for fiscal year 26 with this class 460 uh implication where we take a hit to the fund balance and also with the loss of revenue that we're experiencing due to declining enrollment. Um and you see the evidence there that we're um doing well
075with our expenditures. All in all, we're in an okay place. We have a fairly strong fund balance, but we are dipping below that 12 uh% board policy. um as it sits. So, regarding general fund, um there's kind of the main discussion and then if it's okay with the board, I'd like to just run through the the other notes on the other funds. They'll be a little bit more brief and then we could have some discussion as needed for for the budget as an as a whole. So, um revenue from food service, um no recommended changes from the adopted budget. There's no foreseeable changes to programming um or what we will see as revenue for this fiscal year. As you can see there, that is a federal program. Most of the aid comes from the a
076federal uh level and we've been told at this stage there's no sign that that's going to change. Um but obviously everything federal we're keeping a little bit closer eye on. When it comes to revenues for food service, um we are making a a recommended increase to expenditures. Um want to note here that employees and uh payroll and benefits is very small. We only have two food service employees. Everything would be under the purchase services because we contract our food service mainly through Chartwells, but we still have uh two employees uh kind of grandfathered into the old uh food service unit here. So, um as we look at our budget, um one a carryover fund balance is allowable in food service. So, it's something that you see and we're seeing more often, but what it's turning
077into is quite a challenge to maintain this budget so it doesn't get excessive. We've had this conversation in prior years and probably every time we look at the budget. Um but it's important to maintain this because there are some repercussions if we don't. So um the concern would be if the fund balance exceeds three months of operating costs then we have to enter an MDE spendown plan. It used to be six months of operating costs I believe and they've they've modified this to three months. Um but in discussions with other districts and superintendent Hy uh it sounds like the first stage if we get into a situation where our fund balance is getting too high. We will just get a directive from MDE basically a letter saying to spend your money. Um however it's really
078restricted on what we can spend food service funds on. So we really have to just do a deeper analysis of what the needs are and and put the money um where it would be best serving our students. Um so we fortunately have been doing just barely good enough job with this where we've been maintaining this fund balance um addressing it annually. One of the challenges is let's suppose we need to replace some equipment. It might take six months to get that equipment moving and get it installed. So we want to get um the budget revised now so we can put some orders in for this year and start spending down some of that fund balance. And so you see two recommended uh uh expenditure increases here would be $20,000 for our repair budget and increase
079our equipment capital budget by 300,000 to start um looking for new equipment in the kitchen. Okay. So um this graph here um similar we've seen this in the past just kind of showing our running fund balance for food service and you can see that that's steadily increasing. We really made some efforts in 25 to spend the fund balance and we still ended up with an increase to the fund balance. Part of that was that some of the expenditures didn't hit until this fiscal year. So, we will increase that expenditure budget of 300,000 there to help with that fund balance. Um, when all said and done, we're projecting an ending revised budget uh fund balance of 612,928, which would be within the uh well with under the uh three months operating cost. So, I think we'd
080be in a safe place with this this budget. Okay. Community service. Um, we're not making any revisions. I do want to make sure we note, um, you know, community service, we're looking at about $2 million in revenue and, um, can you move on to the next one there, Darcy? It's not helping me. Okay. All right. So, and then a little under in uh, expenditures that are planned with preliminary budget. Uh, in talking with uh, Director Double, um, we will be making some final revisions. um he has inherited the VPK responsibilities this fiscal year back that that responsibility had shifted out from his umbrella and now it's back and so we'll be looking at some of those salary um and expenditure codes for community editions in the final budget but we thought at this point we
081don't have firm plans. Let's make sure we get it dialed in before we bring it to the board for approval. Okay. And then the construction fund. Um here we increased the capital safety project fund expenditures um 27,974 um and then increased LTFM funds. So these are the um if you remember uh the board approved in 2022 the use of an extra million dollars in bond proceeds that we had to use towards building safety. We've been in a spend down. We're trying to get that spent down. We've got plans for the use of the funds that just projects haven't been build or or fulfilled yet. So those um are just adjusting to make sure that we're spending those down. And then the longer those go out, we we tend to see some interest acrruel. So it
082kind of is worked in our favor, a little bit extra funding there to use up with those safety projects. Um same with the LTFM fund. That would be our um our uh HVAC projects that we did at Southwest Middle School, Lake View, and the high school over the past few years. Those are um planned to be spent down here this this fiscal year. The goal was to have those both rounded or completed last fiscal year. Um but again, this construction timelines didn't allow for it and so we had a carryover balance. Um and we hope to have no construction fund on the books for next fiscal year. So in whole um this is what you would be approving this evening. Here is a uh snapshot of that uh general fund. So everything in that top
083section of the spreadsheet in front of you is the revised budget and general fund. And we talked a lot about the different restricted funds. Those would be the classes outlined on the left. And then they're all described there by line item. Okay. And then the next Whoops, went one too far. Can we go back one? All right. So, this breaks down your construction fund, community service fund, uh excuse me, food service, community service, uh construction, and then our debt service, custodial, uh scholarship fund, self-insured fund, and other post-employment benefits. So, no revisions to the bottom, uh four really um mostly um what we saw for preliminary. So, then some factors impacting us. So as we noted uh revenue is down significantly. Um that trend will continue as long as our enrollment declines. The increase in
084revenue formula uh general aid revenue increases is not keeping up um with our loss of revenue. Um so it helps when we see a formula increase but um the biggest factor in revenue is students. Um so as we see enrollment decline and we will see that as we saw that in our last board meeting um with enrollment trends um we see that in the foreseeable future underfunded mandates such as the READ Act uh unemployment insurance paid leave programs um they're heavily impacting us. They're costly and we need teachers in front of students. So when we have somebody on leave um that is a cost to us. we need substitutes and um these programs have positive intent but they are costly as well. Uh compensatory funding um there's a little uncertainty um we'll talk about that
085in the projection portion of tonight's meeting uh but compensatory funding is something we need to keep our eye on. We noted special education and then uh just rising costs for services overall. When we see work comp insurance and property insurance, things that are increasing outside of our control, um for the most part, um we got to keep a close eye on those and keep accounting for increases as we see them. So today, um here shortly, I'm going to ask for the approval of the 26 revised budget. Um later the next uh agenda item will be to review financial projections and then um I think between today and our March study session we'll set up some time for Superintendent Hy uh to organize some meetings with board members talk about uh budget adjustments. Um and then
086in March we'll be reviewing the task force recommendations as Superintendent Hy mentioned earlier in our our meeting tonight. um we'll be bring those back to the board to review uh and for uh public. And then um you know the last step here will be in June we'll look at our 26 final and preliminary 27 budgets um and we'll try to get that in for the June study session. So a little bit sooner this this year. So at this time um and Darcy has one. Yep. There we go. I just ask for the approval of the 26 revised budget as presented this evening. Are there any questions for Paul prior to uh taking a motion? >> I move to approve the revised budget as presented. Is there a second? >> All right, we have a second.
087Again, any questions for Paul? >> Gary, I do. >> Yeah, Dave. >> Yeah, say Paul, just a quick question on that um non-spendable class 460. Is there any at any chance at any point that this could come back to negatively affect this? Sounds like kind of a nice situation being able to spend some money down now and not pound it for a while, but I'm just want kind of like the uh enrollment projections. I don't really want a big surprise. Is there anything that could happen with that specific fund or is it just the way it operates? >> Good, good question. I think the negative has already occurred. We basically we took on 445,000 in expenditures uh before the actual year they're on the books, right? So what we have to do then is is
088we on on the books we're saying we're setting those funds aside until we realize them and then that's when we're we're making that budgeted transfer in the fiscal year that they're appropriate. So I think the fund balance takes the hit now and then it slowly comes off as we realize those expenditures. So to your question, um, Director Cloud, I think it's, um, the negative impact from doing a non-spendable is already occurred. Um, and I think there there's some things we can there's pros and cons. Um, there's other ways to um, arrange for purchases for future years. A lot of times you will get a more affordable um, a product if you agree to purchase a three-year deal or something along those lines, right? So you it may make more sense to do a prepaid put
089it in non-spendable um to save a few thousand dollars over the course of a couple years. But the other thing it does as you mentioned is it ties up your funds right then for a number of years. So I think um one I'll just name it. I don't like doing it if we don't have to. A lot of times if we can arrange for July one billing and July one delivery of the fiscal year that it's appropriate that's the best course of action and we talked about that director Dorman in our finance committee. Um that's a lot of times best case. There's other scenarios when we it's better option just to go the prepaid route. So I have a question for maybe Steve Paul or Dave. Is the um continued funding to support unemployment benefits
090uh on the legislative agenda in St. Paul? Is there in in session now? Do we know anything? >> We don't we don't know much right now. Um it's still up in the air. Uh just that with the unemployment with the Minnesota paid leave projection that I heard yesterday is they anticipate it to run out uh early July. So um but we'll see. I mean these are anticipations. >> So it's it's it's kind of a nerve-wracking piece right now. Director Schindler, I I think right now they're in the stage of factf finding and they're meeting with um professional organizations um kind of reviewing what their topics will be for legislation. So I think we're still early. I'm not quite sure what the focuses will be at that point. >> Any other >> I hope I just
091going to make comment too. I hope that uh at my meeting uh when we're up there for the uh before our legislative day at the capital which by the way everyone is invited to attend if you'd like to. I'd be happy to uh make it happen, but uh we're going to hear a little bit more about it there. But the unfortunate thing like with the unemployment and now the paid leave, it continues. I I mean I I don't believe it's purposeful that we underfund or at some point unfund some of these mandates, but I just don't think there's a lot of foresight going on right now in uh when it comes to uh total monies and total budgets. not only for the state but uh for uh you know individual districts and everything too. So
092hopefully see more money but I doubt it with both of them running out. >> Angie, you have a question. >> Yes, Paul, you had mentioned a decrease to the costs and salaries and I'm wondering is that based on estimates of where contracts are going to settle? How will how will that be affected as we settle some of these contracts? >> Good question, Director Hoffman. So we um as we settle each contract we will account for that in the revised budget. So all the contracts that we have settled have been accounted for in the current adjustments. The other um budgets when it comes to salaries and expenditures, we do forecast and build in an estimated settlement um similar built around to um you know as we discuss um um projected expenditures uh and assumptions and we'll
093we'll see some of that a little bit in um our next agenda item with projections and expenditures for the district. But um to answer your question in the most generic way possible, we do account for an increase. So there is some built in. Yes. >> Any other questions? Uh hearing none. All in favor of the motion to approve the revised budget, please say I. >> I. >> Opposed. All right, that motion passes. Paul, thank you. And I think you're up next for financial projection. All right. So, we should have a separate set of slides. Thank you, Darcy. All right. So, in the past, we've really just had one or two slides at the end of our budget presentation. Um, as we're going through a community task force and, um, looking at some potential, you know,
094future change for the district. And as I mentioned, we're in a a status of declining enrollment. Um, I thought it was good to elaborate the projection discussion a little bit more this evening. So, um, some key factors that we look at when we make projections or forecast the future, what our finances will look like. Um, number one is enrollment. So, when we review enrollment projections, as we did last month, um, that has a direct tie to our revenue estimates that we will make. Um so those formulas are driven through statute. Uh MDE can provide us kind of a short-term guess and then a long-term guess of what the range of their potential um general aid formulas or their inflationary factors will look like. Um fund balance. So what our current fund balance, our projected fund
095balance looks like will impact what our fund balance based on these projections will look like in the future as well. So when we revise our budget this evening, these projections will now include our revised budget ending year fund balance that we see on our spreadsheet. Um the assumptions that we may have would be expenditure increases which could be a range of expenditures. It could be supplies, it could be insurance, it could be staffing, just anything, right? Um insurance increases or I should probably have benefit increases here in that second row. And then obviously inflation. um we assume that costs are going to increase due to inflation and that will drive uh some other uh parts of this uh forecast. So those first three key factors so enrollment um we noted in our projection or excuse
096me in our presentation about uh um our general fund that we enter uh updated our ADM it's down 101.9 for this fiscal year. So we are realizing less students this year. That changed our enrollment projections for the next five years. We update those projections into this um in this u model we use for our financial projections as well. So we're seeing a uh next three years that slow decline of ADM. By fiscal year 29 our ADM is projected to be below 3,000 ADM. So an average daily membership of less than 3,000. When we talk about revenue formulas, those key factors, the state just set this last week the general aid formula to 2.69% for fiscal year 27. And then for fiscal years 28 and 29, there's there's basically saying it's going to be between two
097and 3%, but it's going to be based on inflation. So right now if you look at different uh CPI forecasts or inflationary forecasts they r all over the place. So um we're making um some you know we have to kind of choose one and the one we've kind of followed is is recommending is just a basic 2.1% increase in 28 and 29 because we don't know what that will look like and that's within that threshold that MDE is committed to between 2 and 3%. Now legislation um there is a concern around special education funding. I think they have to reduce $250 million. There's a blue ribbon commission that's been formed. There's no determinations that are likely going to um take place until the 2627 school year. I think they're targeting the fall sometime. So, we
098there's some uncertainty there with special education funding. Uh most likely it'll come in the form of ads funding. Um there's also a concern around compensatory funding. Compensatory revenue task force has been built by the state. Uh there's no determinations likely again until October of 27. So we're trying to make decisions on what's going to happen with funding for fiscal year 27. And these committees that have been formed won't have a decision until the fall. >> Paul question on >> special ed funding and com compensatory funding. Are they both serving the same population of students? >> Uh no. So the um compensatory funding is it could be um compensatory funding is based on your free reduced lunch population um in in your each school and um basically it's got to be remedial learning. So it might
099be for um additional supports in a classroom, it might be for some interventions um something along those sorts. You can use it for keeping class sizes lower. Um there's a a set of uh statutory allowable um uses of compensatory funds um which could in theory help a student with special needs or that's got a IEP. Uh but special ed funding will only be for students with an IEP, right? Um so um fund balance um also we we indicated as one of those key factors. Um we now have a projected fund balance for fiscal year 26. Um and then what we will do with these um projections is essentially project what our fund balance will be the next three years and then what will our fund balance percentage look like. So the assumptions we make there
100we go thanks Darcy. Um so expenditure increases um depending on the expenditure type we know that there's all sorts is going to assume an increase between two and three and a half% in most cases. If we have an indication from a specific um you know let's say property insurance we know is going to go up by more we could account for that in this model as well. Um but there's um a lot of different um assumptions that we make but mainly we assume an increase each year um based on what we think will happen. U benefit increase. Our lo largest largest bargaining group has a um uh language that um the district contribution towards their health insurance will cover the first seven and a half% of an increase. So we factor that into this model
101as well uh for a benefit increase of 7 and a half% for that unit. And then inflation um using that CPI as I noted for fiscal year 28 and 29. So without expanding the whole model, it's a pretty um elaborate tool with a lot there. This is the kind of guts. So the one piece that we can place in here are these reduction targets. So expenditure adjustments. And if you look there in the middle of the screen, there's the red um font. That's what we would recommend for exp budget adjustments in order to maintain the fund balance at the bottom of the screen. Now, with the uncertainty with special education and compensatory, that's why we're trying to um recommend this this um adjustment in expenditures. So, that if we do um have that unfortunate news
102that we're going to get less in revenue there, we'll be in a a safer place. So, the end of the day, you could see our total revenues, reserved revenues, un undesated revenues. um what we recommend to reduce our expenditures by for each future year. So these recommendations are not for this year. They're not because we're upside down right now. These are appropriate reductions to maintain our fund balance with our projected revenues. Okay. So when we're recommending a decrease of expenditures of 2.6 million in 27, a 2.25 25 million in 28 and 2 million in 29. Those recommendations are based on following that enrollment trend and the revenue trends. So what it means for the district is some really tough decisions in the future. Um we will establish this target this evening. Um as we noted
103the next steps would be to meet with the um the board to discuss what adjustments might look like. Um but as you know um we've made you know we've been making reductions the last couple years with our enrollment starting to decline um over $2 million last year for this year and the year prior about $1.3 million in reductions. And so these are getting harder and harder um to to make. And so we've got uh some I think heavy discussions uh in the near future short term. >> Go back one. >> Yeah, I can try here. Can you go back there, Darcy? >> There. So that 2.6 next year, we're we're really not changing the structure or anything we're doing in the district. We're doing minimum, right? So that's what the task force is looking at.
104How do we stop this trend in the district? So we and that's the just of it and that's my comment of we can't cut our way out of this because you can't do this every year. So that I mean this is realistically why we started that task force, why in June I started talking about that. Um so yeah some hard decisions. Yeah. So to that point um if we make some structural changes between now and say fiscal year 28 then that change is this right and we update these projections to reflect our new model. So um and that's going to happen every year when we come back to um you know revise budget time we can look at a new projection and what the next year's number would look like. So basically update each year
105with where our current reality is. So um shortterm recommend the reduction of expenditures for next fiscal year of $2.6 million. long-term due to declining enrollment and significant uh we need to make significant budget adjustments necessary to maintain that fund balance annually. However, I think in the short term or the near future, we're going to see some discussion about um task force and that will lessen that burden. So, a task force isn't going to come up with a recommendation to save over $2 million in the, you know, with one recommendation, but it might take a chunk of that out uh and help with the reductions as we process declining enrollment. So, at the end of the day, what we're talking about is evolving as a district. How are we meeting our current population and using our
106facilities and our expenditures to the best to serve those students, right? So, what we need to do is continue to reduce staffing expenditures in line with enrollment even after a structural change. that's the appropriate thing to do. Um, we need to utilize restricted funds effectively. We had a short conversation tonight about the different restricted funds that we can use differently. And as we see less unassigned funds, we need to make sure that we're tapping into all of those fund balances. Um, we need to adjust, make fiscally responsible decisions, um, the use of our facilities. Uh, and a reminder that just one one solution isn't going to solve this whole problem. It's going to be a continued challenge. Um, and that's why it's important to look forward a handful of years and just plan. Um, what's
107our vision? When we make changes, we need to have priorities as a district. And so I I'm eager to start this process knowing that we have some strategic direction in place. Um, because staying true to those values is going to help us make those tougher decisions. Um, and then just those long-term plans give us some targets. You know, we can start playing off of our debt plan with those um, long-term plans. you know, if we see that enrollment is going to be at a certain place in a few years, those can play together. Um, and we need to keep those long-term plans in mind when analyzing our short-term solutions. So, if we make an adjustment via task force, we should be thinking down the road as well of what this might look like in five
10810 years. So, um, so back to um some closure here. Um, kind of going through those steps. Today, we hit one and two. Uh, the next will be board members u reviewing with superintendent. Um and then we'll be back uh for a study session and I think in March hopefully we have it in time by then. It might get pushed to a regular meeting. We'll see. Um but hopefully get those task force recommendations to the board uh to review publicly and then um you know we'll be making some final budget decisions um in June. >> Paul, any questions for Paul at all? >> All right, Paul. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Next, we have an action item on policy 610 concerning field trips. >> Good evening, Vice Chair Schindler, Dr. Hy, school board
109members. Uh, so tonight bringing forward for final and third reading um is policy 610. So this is again an MSBA policy that we are asking to replace um our local policy 10190. Um this again was a policy brought forward to the policy committee in November. Um and as today we went through first, second and today is the final reading. Then to approve the uh revised field trip policy. >> I'll move to approve policy 610. >> All right. Second. Is there a second to approve the policy? >> I'll second. >> Okay, Dave. Thank you. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. All in favor of approving policy 610 say I. >> Ned. All right. And then our next item, pursuant to Minnesota statute section 13D.3 and labor negotiations, I'll entertain a motion for a close session. >> I've
110got a motion. >> Second. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. And Dave, my understanding is you cannot be present for the closed second. >> Correct. >> Okay, Dave. >> Correct. Have a good one. >> All right. Thank you. >> Great job. >> All right. Association master contract for 2527. >> All right. Is there a second? Any further discussion? Hearing none. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. That motion carries. Now I'll entertain a motion to uh adjourn the meeting. So move. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> And that is I'm looking at my MSBA guide to parliamentary procedure. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. Do it right.