School Board Meeting - June 3, 2025

001This regular meeting of the Independent School District 5:35 School Board is called to order at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025 in room 137 of the Edison Building. The board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of the Dakota people and we honor the Dakota nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples. Present at this meeting are school board members, Superintendent Kent Pquel, a non- voting exeicio member and assistant school board clerk, Miss Anne Kramer. Miss Kramer, will you please call the role? Director here. Here vice chair here. At this time we offer the opportunity to say the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and

002justice for all. Item 2.1 is approval of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? Move approval. Second. It has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. The agenda has been approved. The agenda and documents for this meeting are available at rochesterschools.org/simly. There are no comments to the board this evening. So, we'll move on to our information and outreach. Item one is year in review. Superintendent Pel. Thank you, Madam Chair. And as is hopefully always the case with our info and outreach items, this one will be brief. We sent out today to uh stakeholders from various uh backgrounds, students, staff, uh parents, and caregivers a summary of the school year that is ending tomorrow. And what a year it has been. It's a year when

003we can say our reading scores went up, our math scores went up, our science scores went up, our attendance rates improved, and our graduation rates went up. Um none of them as far up as we want them to go, but trending in the right direction. We adopted new school start times, which as this board knows better than anybody, was a three-year endeavor, but shifted our youngest learners from starting at 9:35 to starting at 8 am when young brains are much more ready to begin to learn. We introduced a cell phone procedure that we're going to hear about tonight that on the whole uh has been highly successful in reinforcing positive learning environments in our schools, though not all students have uh loved it for reasons that I'm sure we'll discuss in a bit. We adopted

004a new reading curriculum that's grounded in the science of reading that has been a herculean effort on the part of our elementary school teachers and principles and staff, but that I believe uh is well worth that effort as it really grounds our kids in learning to read so that they can read to learn uh as they progress through the grades. Thanks to our uh intrepid financial team, we had yet another financial audit that found no fault with the district's books. Um, that is uh the fifth year in a row and it's a streak I'd like to keep going. We had four snow days, much lower than some students would have wanted, but they better be glad they got their four. And we did not have to add days in June because we had so many.

005Uh we developed a new uh budget and staffing model that we came to call the balanced budget model that you will hear about from John and Andy in a moment which remains a work in progress but that has put more decision-making authority at the school level while maintaining class size and other district-wide commitments. We've launched an effort that board members I know are very much engaged in and that our community will begin hearing about in the summer and the fall to really redefine our school district through new mission, vision, values, um and ultimately a new logo uh and a new tagline and a new brand identity as they say in the marketing world. We began this spring a very important discussion about the reality of declining birth rates and increasing competition and what that will

006mean for us. Um, and as we discussed at your uh last board meeting, among other things, it means we need to redouble our efforts to be the educational provider of choice in Rochester. You approved a new school continuous improvement planning process that we will spend the next year fully implementing and then launch in total uh during the 26 27 school year. And then recently I announced a reorganization of our central office to align with that school improvement planning process which I will give the board an overview of at your next meeting. So madam chair that is a turbo walk through a very busy year. I think the final thing I would say is that I know it's not lost on uh this board, but it is um also not lost on me that the efforts

007that staff undertook to make this possible were uh incredible and that there's a lot of people who probably are feeling a little like they're stumbling to the end of the school school year here. uh but it really I think is not stumbling. It's crossing u a finish line in a really positive way that we can feel very positive about and I'm grateful for the effort that has uh gone into that work and that the board has provided uh in leading the district. So there's our snapshot. Thank you board members. I um had mentioned that if anybody wanted to add their own observations about um this past school year, this would be a great time to do it. Director Workman, I I think it's really hard to to zero on just one or two. So, I'm

008going to mention one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I think seven or eight. And those were the stick visits that schoolboard members were invited to starting um in October with Overland and then Franklin, Willow Creek, Sunset Terrace, Elton Hills, Dakota Gibbs, and Century High School. So, um I think for me it gave me um actually seeing in practice all the work that the administration's been doing, our principles and our teachers have been doing. There's nothing quite like being in the classroom watching and observing students and their interactions with teachers, the deeper learning that's occurring. Um, it's amazing and I wish the I wish everybody in the public could get to experience that because education is certainly a whole lot different than when I was in school and I'm very happy that's the case.

009Um, but it was just mind mindblowing as to um all the progress that's been made by students and the enthusiasm of the staff and everybody that we were able to interact with. So, I'm hoping we'll be able to continue those visits next year. Dr. Cook, one of the significant highlights uh for this school year uh from my perspective came in November when our entire community decided that um they wanted to express the the value of Rochester public schools to their lives to their community um by choosing to vote for the referendum and to invest in our schools and to enable them to operate stably. um and uh give our community confidence that the schools as they exist right now and the offerings that are available right now um will continue to be there um for

010for a good bit and uh allow people to plan for the future. So I think that was one of the the most significant uh things that happened this year. Dr. And for me, um, I'm still, if you will, uh, basking or reflecting on this past weekend or past week of, uh, graduations, uh, thinking specifically of our non-traditional programs where for me it reinforced uh, why RPS is unique and its educational offerings and uh, is and should be the district of of choice. uh whether it is through a number of our academy programs uh leap rail uh what I saw were were students who I won't say against all odds but uh with great challenges persevered our district uh availed itself of ensuring that they would receive highquality resources uh staff uh and one particular And

011one principal in particular, uh, and I dislike doing this because I think we have great principles across the board, but Molly Murphy at at RA, uh, how she shared, uh, the the belief that she is the luckiest person, uh, to be able to, uh, work at that particular site and the not challenges, but the opportunities that are made available daily uh, to respond to students. of various needs and abilities. Again, for me, uh uh indicating that that's what makes RPS so unique. uh it it may not be measured in the form of a uh how many uh uh you know national merit scholars come from these non-traditional programs but it is something to celebrate especially when you consider uh the family support that was present uh not just in those programs but uh throughout all

012programs and then I would be remiss if I didn't mention how impressed I was with the JM uh student prior to receiving his uh diploma. Did a backflip landed it and uh it was a great time of celebration for all. So uh Superintendent Pel uh I know most of the leadership the direction these uh points that you have presented are all uh important benchmarks for the communities hold to reflect upon. But I think those of us who are a part of the board uh you know extend to you uh strong congratulatory uh nod uh to continue the good work provide the leadership and uh opportunity structures for our staff to succeed as they are. Director Mclofflin. Um like Director Workman, I have a couple things on my list. Um, I was reflecting back to the

013beginning of the school year when the legislative committee that I work with was developing a resolution to submit to the MSBA delegate assembly. The one that we landed on was about data practices and watching that process go from proposing that resolution to having the board approve it to presenting it at the delegate assembly, incorporating it into the legislative agenda for the board and then now seeing it uh passed into law by the um state legislature has been really gratifying and and great to see that progress overtime about how an important um kind of a boring piece but important to the district and and our operations has transpired. I would also point out the highlight of the presentation about our housing stability initiatives. What struck me most important about that um presentation was the preventive work

014that the district is doing regarding students who are facing housing instability that I think it's important to focus on that preventive work and I would love to see that type of um mindset applied to so many different things not only in our district but in our community. Um, I also look back at our notes about the five essentials, which is going to be a new way for the district to gather information and use data. And I like the fact that it's based on uh significant research. And I think it's exciting to uh watch how that's going to roll out for the district. And finally, the mindsets and behaviors and experiences for student success. I think it's um really exciting to see how that's going to play out over the next couple years and beyond um

015to help our students succeed. Director Marvin, and as Director Barlo was saying, I I'm not sure that people know uh about all of the incredible special programs that we have in Rochester public schools. um when we were um at the the rail uh graduation, it was a celebration and uh ran into a a friend of mine who had her family had moved out of Rochester with job change to a different state and she and her son then are moving back here because he can get the kind of service and the kind of education in Rochester that they couldn't get where they were living. And so they made the commitment for a year uh to be back here until he is uh ready to graduate. Um and then so many of us were going to so

016many community events and um Dr. Pel when you're talking about how much we owe to our staff. Uh, I was at one of the events I was at was Elton Hills Elementary School and it there were hundreds and hundreds of people there and I asked the principal, "How do you get this together?" She said, "Well, you know, all the teachers, all the staff, they show up and, you know, there was food, there was games." And I talked to so many people there and they said we love this place because we can come to Elton Hills any event at Elton Hills and everybody knows everybody. So the kind of community building that our schools are doing I think is huge not just for our school district but for our city. You call my name anyway, huh?

017Um, I will say as the newest board member, it's it's been it's been an interesting ride. There's a there's a lot of great things going on in RPS. Um, I'm I'm just really excited for where we're heading. Um, I'm really excited for, you know, how we are including more of the community aspect into our schools. Um, it has been very rewarding to be able to see a lot of our RPS staff at a lot of different community events. Um, the kids are very excited about it. The community is very excited about it. So, I'm really excited to see that continue to grow. Um, and again, the graduations were were really amazing. Um, and not to sound, you know, like a re like a repeater here, but um, there are so many amazing things happening in

018our alternative programming. Um, even as a community member that I I was even unaware of before. um participating in some of these things. Um so it was really rewarding to see how much work we're doing to make sure that every student is getting that opportunity to get through the school system. Um it was probably the most rewarding part of all of the graduations um because some people have to fight really hard to get to those days. So if anybody who has had, you know, special needs children, I I have special needs um grandson, it's very rewarding to see that there are people who are very committed to making sure that those kids still get the same experience as so many of the other kids do. So that was really touching for me to see um

019to be able to share in that joy um because I don't think that some people know what families with special needs children experience. So for it's a big deal, you know, to see um your child walk across the stage and to be a part of that process and be able to shake those kids hands was very rewarding. When I think about um the initiatives and the strategies that are listed um in this year in review, um you know, there's two of them that the state legislature said we had to do, which was the cell phones and the reading. But I I think the direction that our district is going is that we're doing things ahead of time before definitely before anybody tells us, but because we know it's the right thing for our Rochester students

020and our community and um what our staff is also telling us that our students need. So, we were working on the cell phone issue and the reading um implementation even before anything was passed at the state legislature. And no one has told us we have to do a school continuous improvement plan or a balanced budget model or deeper learning um or the mindsets and behaviors. We've decided based on conversations with our students and our staff and our parents and what's best practices and research that this is the direction we need to take to improve our outcomes for our students. And it's nice to be ahead of the curve. Um it takes a lot of hard work to stay ahead of the curve because um we're driving fast. Um, but like many people have said, the

021commitment of the the administration and staff to keep us on this road, um, sometimes hanging on for dear life. Um, but I do hope that everybody has some time to rejuvenate over the summer because I think the agenda is going to be as ambitious, if not more, starting uh, going forward. And I'm I feel fortunate to have this team, the superintendent, our administrators, and all of our our district um partners um and staff working with us so that every year will look like this kind of year in review. So, thank you everyone. One brief, please. Um thank you, Director Cook. I cannot believe the referendum was not listed in this letter. That was totally unintentional. I wrote it too late at night. That was a big deal. It was actually supposed to be the lead

022and I don't know Mamsu Kenson and I will be talking about what happened to the referendum but that was not intentional uh that it was not listed. Um so thank you for bringing I when you said that I said you're kidding it's not listed there. That was a gigantic vote of confidence. And leaving aside the fact that the budget projection we're going to hear about tonight would be dramatically different had that not passed, the vote of confidence that that um our community gave to our educators and our students through that effort, I think means almost as much as the money. Um and it has resonated so deeply. So always proofread your uh materials when you do it. But um thank you for adding that. Maybe have Director Cook do it, too. Yeah, I always have

023director Cook proofread that get a good lawyer. So, no, thank you for that. I It was in there in an earlier draft and somewhere it it fell fell off, but a huge part of the year for sure. Well, it it will it will not not be with us for the next. So, um great. All right. Our next information and outreach item is our board member updates. Does anybody have any additional updates from committees or other events? Director Whitehorn. Um, I just want to put out there again that, you know, back to school rally is coming up in August. So, um, believe it's the 17th. Uh, it is online. So, if I'm giving the wrong day, please don't. My brain be a lot of places sometimes, but if you haven't signed up to volunteer, you haven't

024gotten in touch with anybody, you can get directly into contact with me if that helps you. But I I would love to see uh the turnout. So, I hope everybody's getting excited for that. We had over 2,000 um students last year that got book bags and free things at the event. Um I think we did over 1,500 um hamburgers and hot dogs and we're expecting that number to increase this year. So we can use every bit of volunteers. So if you haven't volunteered or you don't know what's going on with that, feel free to reach out to me and I will connect you with who you need to speak with. Dr. Good morning. I know um many of us have all have been going to many different school events and especially in the last few

025years many of the middle schools and high schools have been doing international culture events and they have music and they have food and there are there's entertainment and it's amazing to be there. Um, many of the students dress in uh na uh native beautiful native costumes and the thing that I appreciate about this so much is that they it's such a happy time and they're sharing where they came from, where their parents came from. They're learning from each other and they are so proud of their background and of being members of the school that they're attending. You know, you don't have to pick a lane. you can be many things and it's just um so joyful and so many of these are student initiated and student planned. So I hope they continue because it makes

026all of them smarter, more knowledgeable and I think it makes our our community just better. All right, let's move on. Thank you board members. Our next items are our consent agenda items 5.1 through uh 510. Would any board member like any item removed from the consent agenda for separate consideration? Move approval. Second. It has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The consent agenda has been approved. Please, Madam Chair, I just want to briefly congratulate Tom Olson who was just approved as our principal at Washington Elementary. So, congratulations. [Applause] Our next agenda item is our focus topic, cell phone procedure review. Superintendent, thank you, Madam Chair. I see that we have um Angie McAndrews, uh our uh director of I always have to get

027the exact title these days. Student engagement and school climate. All things Yes. before we before we shift into similarly important work, but an um Angie has brought a group of folks to give us a sense of how things have gone this year with the cell phone procedure. And so, thank you for your leadership in making this happen. This was one of the first things um Angie uh took on as she transitioned from being one of our great school principles to working here at the central office level. And so, uh, it we figured before we go off into the summer, given that this has been an issue of big importance, not just within our district, but across the country and nationally, internationally, that we ought to stop and take stock and talk about how it went.

028So, thank you. Have a chance to introduce uh the colleagues that you brought with you and then we'll turn it over to you. All right, that sounds good. Do you want to introduce yourselves? Sure. I'm Terry Lenander, principal at Dakota. I'm Hered. I'm just a student at JM. You're not just a student at JM. And Kristen Welsh. I'm an English teacher at JM. And Hered is also a student at PE, right? Okay. So, PE and JM. Um, and you've got slides for me to go. You have the clicker. Okay. Perfect. All right. So, we're going to talk about the cell phone procedure. And to get started, I just wanted to give you a little bit of a recap on where we started the year. So last summer um our principles gathered together and came up

029with what we believed was a standard procedure that would work for students in our different buildings uh based on the level. Um there was a lot of discussion because I think the developmental needs and uh for um expectations for kids varies by level and so it was important that we had some flexibility between those school levels. So, elementary students were keeping their phones um or other devices in their backpacks, lockers or cubbies. Middle school students in their lockers because backpacks are on them during the day. So, there was a we needed to differentiate that from elementary. And then high school students were allowed to have them in their backpacks and with them, but they needed to be away and not being used um during the class period. If they weren't in backpacks, teachers oftentimes would

030offer collection containers. High school students were allowed to use them during passing time and open hour. Um, and we really felt like standardizing our communication to start the year was a priority. So, we started with communication to families and then did some direct instruction with students when they were in the building starting in the fall. Um, and then throughout the year gathered some feedback from our principal groups initially. um our student school board worked on gathering some feedback about uh the cell phone and device uh procedures and then also this spring we did a survey of a broader context uh to get some feedback. So then um we did the survey in the spring and sent that to students, staff, and caregivers. That went out to uh everyone just before spring break. Um and we

031asked them questions specifically about direct uh distractions and behavior in the learning environment, um the consistency of enforcement impact on the school environment and ideas that they might have to improve the policy or procedure as we went forward. Um and we tried to use a format that was similar in uh language and in the way that we gathered the information so that it was familiar to people who had provided their feedback prior to the policy being in place. Um we have some quantitative and some qualitative insight for you that uh Dr. Ruck helped prepare. So staff overwhelmingly found the policy very helpful, saying that it made their job easier and that it was uh simple to enforce because it was there was very clear language and um consistent language to be able to share with

032families and with students. Caregivers believed that it had improved the learning environment and thought that it was clear, easy to remember, and beneficial. Students, as you probably would expect, weren't quite as excited about this change in our procedure. They had some mixed feelings and frustrations particularly about limited use during lunch break um lunch breaks and passing time. That was a primary concern for middle school students at the high school students were able to access their devices during those times um but in the middle school they were not. Um another quantitative a couple quantitative insights um consistency and enforcement. there were uh concerns across groups especially among students that believe that there were some discrepancies in the way that the policy or procedure was actually put in place. So um inconsistency inconsistencies between classrooms um and

033even in between buildings um students had mixed opinions about increased focus. 48% thought there were somewhat or strongly agreed that it was easier to focus. 33% disagreed um that it was easier to do their work without their phones. And then students indicated a slight perceived improvement in their ability to learn more effectively. Um here are some some qualitative feedback that we thought was important to share with you. Um improved uh we identified that there was an improved learning environment. Um that there was appreciation for the clarity of the policy and the consistency uh that it provided. Um and there are many people that actually advocate for a stricter policy uh to be put in place. Um I identifying that there are social benefits and uh educational benefits to not having devices at all. I think

034actually that was even introduced at the legislature but then didn't pass yet this spring. So um some challenges again inconsistencies in how the policy was enforced across buildings. um some resistant from resistance from students regarding the policy especially talking about personal property rights, emergency communication and social interactions. Um and then alternative distractions uh specifically noting that the Chromebooks were becoming a distraction in some environments where maybe the phone was the distraction prior that the Chromebook had just kind of taken the place of that. And then um some recurring suggestions for improvement. So um there was a lot of advocacy on the part of students for trying to find ways that there was some flexibility to this plan during the school day. Um better enforcement and clearer consequences were noted especially from staff and parents. And

035uh there were some concerns addressed regarding safety and emergency situations. So being able to communicate with children if there was the event of an emergency at school. and then also some ideas that were shared around uh storage solutions while phones were not in the possession of students at school. We have two sets of recommendations. First at the building level and then at the district level. Ultimately, I think the important thing to know is that when the principles met and digested the the data and the outcomes from the survey, they decided not to make any changes to the procedure as it was. Um they did identify that the standardized enforcement is an issue that needs to be addressed at the building level. So the first thing that we did was provide buildings their building level data

036so that they could be clear not just what does the global um survey say but then also what was specific to their building and they received that in quantitative and qualitative form so that they could uh work with their staff to identify what kinds of things needed to be cleaned up at their building. Um, and then they also identified the need to regularly communicate the policy and expectations back to students and families that um, you know, we always like to establish what those expectations are, but just like adults need reminders of expectations, students also need those. And so making sure that we continue to communicate those throughout the year to students and families will be important. And then also um for buildings to be looking at um policies regarding Chromebooks to make sure that if

037those are creating some sort of distraction that they have procedures in the classroom to help minimize those. At the district level um we need to work on just clear guidelines and communication protocols in the event of emergencies or other personal uh urgent personal situations. I think um so last year um I had served as principal at Kellogg and we had piloted away for the day and one of the things that we had urged our staff to do is if a student reached out and said that they had an urgent personal need to be able to use their device that we provided a private place for them to do that so it wouldn't be in the classroom but maybe they could go to the counselor's office or something like that to be able to communicate with

038the person that they were needing to be in touch with. So just making sure that we have some clear communication about what that could possibly look like. Um, and I asked these three to be here just to represent the perspective of a teacher in the classroom, a student in the classroom, and a principal in a building uh to field any questions that you might have. Um, with me being in the Edison building this year, I'm further away from the classroom, and so I figured they might have better uh better ideas to share with you. So, let's start with questions you might have. Director Workman, I Yeah, I have one uh clarification question. Um, were high school students allowed to use their phones during lunch? They were during lunch. The only time that they had to

039have their phones put away were during classroom like during instructional periods. That that wasn't mentioned specifically. And then the I do do have one comment about um that you mentioned that the legislature did not, you know, have a unified state policy of, you know, no cell phones ever. And there was a lot of discussion um in among MSBA membership and all of our districts. There are so many districts that are very very different and we wanted it to remain I should say MSBA wanted it to remain um locally controlled because you know we know our districts better than the legislature as as the whole state. So, um I'm really pleased that the policy has been working out so far, but maybe you would like to have a comment. What do you think about what about

040about the cell about the cell phone changes? How did that impact you? I think it's it's good. Like I feel like I can like I don't know. It's not a distraction. It's just kind of out of the way. But then it kind of pushes all the distractions to my Chromebook. a note in that. Thank you. Maybe we can just mad chair, how about from the classroom teacher and the principal uh perspective? How did you uh experience and you can also highlight of course the challenges that existed? Well, I think it's given us um it's empowered us as teachers to say no, right? Like we we're the adults and we're there for your safety. That's the way I frame it for the ninth graders is that this is the adults and we're trying to teach you

041moderation and how to balance that because we as adults are laser focused on all of our electronics too. I have to have mine because I'm also a type 1 diabetic. So, I have to have it there, right? But teaching the kids that balance and that moderation and when is an appropriate time to take your phone out and when is an inappropriate time to have that phone out. And I think the piece that I would like to see RPS move in is educating our parents about appropriate cell phone use as well. Um, frequently at the high school level, I am at the mercy of parents texting their children in the middle of my class. I get your kid for 48ish minutes if I'm lucky a week, you know, a day. Um, and I have a lot

042of curriculum that I need to get through. and I can't compete with you because kids are trained to always answer that phone when as they should, right, when their parents um reach out to them, but it makes my job extra hard when I need to get to them to be learning the curriculum so that we have graduates who are, you know, a part of their communities. So, I think there's a a a parent education piece that um perhaps we need to start looking forward. But overall, it's been a really good thing in the classroom. I see kids who are focused who kids who are recognizing that they need balance with that as well, which has been really refreshing to see. I wish I could get them to put it in the pocket the whole year,

043but you know, the closer we get to June, the less that happens. And you pick and choose your battles, too. And I would also say, too, that um it depends upon the class that you're in. I teach yearbook. I need the kids to have their phones for yearbook because quite frankly, their phone cameras are much better than anything I can purchase at this point in time. So, I think there needs to be some flexibility within that as well. Yeah. You may have seen we released a video last week in which I visited all four of our high schools and I asked kids, "What's the biggest challenge your generation will face every single student and they were incredibly different. Every single one without prompting and they weren't listening to each other said phones or technology and

044focus like this generation is very focus. They they sort of have identified the problem. I don't know if we have a solution, but it was striking to hear them. They they were very aware that this is going to be a huge issue. Can I ask a followup for the teacher? Sure. Um the issue of the Chromebook being the the alternative. Do you see that? And what do you suggest? Oh, we love GoG Guardian. Um it's really you can always tell when um you zap that browser out then the kids kind of perk up like what's going on. But I think GoG Guardian's been a really good tool for us to help curb that. But I think it's also identifying looking at where the the student is um developmentally, what grade they're in, because a senior

045should be allowed to have more freedom and responsibility than say a freshman or a sixth grader, right? Because we're about to send them off into the real world. So, um the kids are open to it. We know it's an issue, but it's also putting the accountability at the high school level on the kids, too. This is your responsibility. Your education is your responsibility and if you're not going to do the work, we've provided all the tools that we can, but you have to ultimately be the one to do the work. So, and can you explain what GoG Guardian is because I'm not familiar with uh GoG Guardian is the software that we use that monitors all of the Chromebooks in the classroom so I can see what um every student is looking at at any

046given time. And so, if I see that they're on a website that they're like if they're playing chess, that's always a big hit in our classroom when they're supposed to be doing what they're supposed to be doing. um I can um close that window out and then it shuts that down for that student and then and they know this is happening. Oh yeah. Yep. Because they they see it get shut down on theirs. How hard is that for you to manage all of that? It well getting in the habit of using the GoG Guardian I would say is we've gone back to a lot of pencil and paper um just because that eliminates we've gone back to time to essays with um the onset of chat GPT and AI and all that stuff. um all

047that technology mix together. We've we've been going back to our old school ways um which has really helped. But I think the GoG Guardian software has been a great tool. Awesome for us to have. It also filters sites that we don't want access to at all. And you can lock it so that the kids can only go to certain websites. So it's I think more education piece too on how to use that um more regularly would be beneficial. And just to follow up for you Dr. Do we pay for that? Yes. Okay. Good. We do. And interestingly, middle school students, in particular at Dakota, have taken to emailing me when they decide they want a site unblocked with GoG Guardian. I was like, well, thank you. I'll pass that on to Miss Lenander or somebody.

048How about from the principal perspective? I think my favorite moment last year when we actually started away for the day at Kellogg was when a teacher busted a kid passing a note. That was the first time in years we have seen that and we're like, my gosh, it's working. Um, I think it's been so good for middle school students that, and I've said this many times before, like they are learning how to be kids again. It's so great to see 80% of the students going out for recess, which in the past has not happened because they'd sit in the cafeteria on their phones or on their Chromebooks. Um, so we've seen so much more interaction between students, which has been awesome. Um I would say the students have understood the policy or have accepted it

049more than parents. Um obviously parents have safety in mind and that's their biggest concern. Um students every once in a while will still say can we have them at lunch? Can we use them today? We'll just say no and that's the end of that discussion. Um so I I've seen a huge change. I've also noticed that Monday mornings were dealing with a lot of social media, which I mean social media was a lot of our issues in the past when they could have um them during class. You know, they'd be like, "Let's meet here. Let's spread these rumors about what not." And now it's really what they're doing over the weekend is coming in Monday mornings and we work on that Mondays and really don't see a lot of it throughout the rest of the

050week. So, I think that also goes back to how do we educate the parents more as well. Um, just on social media and making sure they're still checking their kids uh phones for that. Um, but overall it's it's been great. I've I've loved the policy and I think it's it's doing great things for engagement in school. Dr. Barlo. Well, a question for um Angie. So as you are redeployed, will this work continue or how will you envision uh this moving forward? I would expect we probably will need to continue to go back to the drawing board at least, you know, uh mid year and at the end of the year just to see if there are any new things. I mean, you know, techn technology is evolving, so we're going to have to stay ahead

051of it and make sure that we're continuing to gauge if the procedure we have in place is appropriate and what adjustments we might need to make. I rely pretty heavily on the feedback of principles because I think they see behavior types of things, they get feedback from teachers. Um, and then they also connect with families and so I think that that perspective is pretty valuable to give us a pulse on what kinds of things maybe we need to think deeper on. Dr. Wford, and I I would say that I'm I'm pretty excited about it. Um, being that I've parented through a few different generations now, so I've seen the effects of cell phone use and even on myself as well as I'm I'm not going to sit up here and be too bougie like I'm

052not a little bit dependent on my device as well. But what I would like to see because as uh Miss Welsh should say you know we are moving into a time where so much is on the phone right now it's part of medicine it's part of people's jobs it's you know unfortunately even for us who are not huge fans of our phones it's becoming a part of a necessity for work and other things right so I would be interested to see how will we better prepare our students to to not end up in with an unhealthy relationship ship with the device, right? Because it doesn't seem like something that's going away. Um, and I know that there's a parenting part obviously. Um, but I also know sometimes engaging parents sometimes because kids learn things, right?

053Kind of like when your kid learns to drive and then they see you do all the well, you're not supposed to do this, mom, and you didn't stop here, right? So I kind of sometimes even with in educating parents, educating our students, right, as as the technology increases, sometimes that it filters backwards too, right? So that we can so I'd be interested in seeing how can we implement something that, you know, as she said, as our seniors, they're not going from this controlled environment to now I have my phone all the time and they're just doing what some of us do and just sit and scroll for hours, right? How do we teach them how to utilize the technology in a socially responsible way? Um so that it does not continue to be a hindrance

054because we don't know as technology grows, you know, it it may eventually filter back into the schools as as a device used for learning. So how do we make sure that we're using it appropriately? And I know this is not a question that can be answered right now, but I hope that this is something that we're keeping in mind as we, you know, think of these. So, I can interject. We did do like a semiformal book study at JM with the anxious generation. I don't know if you guys are familiar, but they do provide framework and with both parenting tips and in the classroom tips as well and on and perhaps a path for us to start, you know, researching and investigating to see if that's something we want to implement. Um, I was really

055struck by the data that's in that book. Um, I immediately took my six-year-old niece's devices away and, you know, that was the end of that for a while. But, um, I I think that would be a great like maybe we could do a book study like districtwide with that and come up with some ideas. I don't know. That's just an one suggestion. I shared with Kristen that there's a district near where I live that uh did that as a district. their whole district did the anxious generation and then they donated all the books back out to the community which I thought was such a great idea and they ran out of books in very short order because there were so many parents that were like yes I would love to read that and to have

056a free copy at my fingertips would be awesome. So, um I was going to mention um when we first started the program at Kellogg two years ago, um we had surveyed our staff and our staff were like 90% on board, but the 10% who weren't were talking about exactly what you're talking about, which were instead of taking phones away, how do we train kids to be more um informed and responsible consumers? Uh, and I think that the 90% of the people who were in support of the plan to put the phones away really were more coming from the perspective that they needed to focus on the things that they have they're responsible for teaching for during the day. So to remove the distraction was helpful. But um, at the middle school level, there are some

057lessons that happen in um, in our 21st century um, where they talk about digital citizenship or your digital footprint and things like that too. So I think you know trying to educate kids along the way. But as we set the stage for away for the day at Kellogg, we offered a community engagement activity which was the screeners. Is that what it was called? And that was it was a great opportunity for families to be able to come and connect and learn about how they might help um taper the need for that technology all the time. But then we also showed those same videos to kids in our advisory classroom um just so that they could see like this isn't just Miss Lander and Mr. Schneider and Mrs. Mcander being uh restrictive about cell phone use

058but that there are mental health impacts and I think and there were also uh substance use impacts that kids were not really aware of too. So I think that education was really helpful to open kids eyes to what could happen with uh getting your you know using technology too much. And I like that you said consumer because I think that's what it is that we are consumers of it but there's also the other side of that where we could also be creators of the technology and I think we're you know as a nation as a place we're just have a consumer mindset but you know that is something we could also think of shifting when we're thinking about technology it's just not being a consumer of technology but you know giving children the empowering them

059to be the creators of the games as opposed to just the consumers you know of the Dr. Mcofflin, did you still have a comment? I do. Um, I remember when we were talking about this a year or so ago now. Um, one of my concerns was both the safety and the emergency communications if there's a lockdown or a police presence, that kind of thing. Um, if I recall correctly, there was discussion of um, sharing with parents what the alternative forms of communication were and can you talk about that a little bit for the people who maybe missed that and is that going to continue with future communication? I think the the main thing that we wanted to communicate with families when we first started this at Kellogg was that if we do actually have some

060sort of a lockdown and some sort of an emergency, we don't want your kid on the phone with you. We want them to be listening to our directions so that we can keep them safe. that was really a paramount concern. Um, and my commitment to families was that I would make sure that I was communicating as quickly as I could and as accurately as I could about what was happening. Um, but it's clear from the survey that we gave that there that's still heavy on people's mind, which is why that's listed as our district job to like our next step is to figure out how do we communicate that to parents and and to students so that they feel comfortable and confident that in the event of an emergency that we have a clear communication

061plan. So, um, within our office of school support, we'll I'll work with, uh, actually we'll have a new name for our department, but not yet. Um, and I'll work with Yeah, I'll work with, uh, with Mr. Lingan to make sure that we have some communication about that. My hope is just to add that to the handbook this year. So, when parents have a question about it, um, like what is the emergency communication protocol that it would be right there so that they could reference that easily. Could that also be included in some sort of district-wide communication? Perhaps in the fall it's a time to do that. That's a great idea. Awesome. Thank you, Director Marvin. I'm just curious. Is there any kind of plan to get rid of landlines in the classrooms? The regular plug

062into the wall telephones. I mean, they're everywhere and I'm assuming that they're going to stay stay there. No, we're they're we just recently reinvested in them, but not not to the joy of many of our office managers who don't like our system. But yeah, they're there and we have not there's no anticipated plan to discontinue because they still are at a resource to the point that Andrew was talking about for a teacher. Absent that you literally would depend on that teacher cell phone, but you know certainly we always keep looking at things and like many people at home there might be a point where there's a decision that that's not fundamental. Well, I'm a landline fan but just I just wondered. So thank you. You're the last one, Jean. I know the last landline. No

063one can call Jean Marvin anymore since um when you talked about the high school um it seems like there's some variability and some choice on the part of the teacher whether students are asked to put it in their backpack or leave it in their locker whether there's a collection common collection space is there are we learning anything from other people who have done this or our own practices like would it be good to have a standard so that every classroom you go into you do the same thing with your phone? Do you want to offer your perspective and could you talk a little bit about the differences between your two buildings? Yeah. So at PEK we kind of have a stricter thing. Um we have like a big case thing and we put our phone

064in the whatever number we have and at JM they kind of just say like no more phones. Sorry, what was the question? like what's the what is there a good way to have the phones collected or leave it up to students to put in their lock or their backpack? So, I'm not that sure, but I know at PEK um you know, putting them in the cubbies works really good. Like a lot of people do it, but it's really easy to just say, you know, I don't have my phone today or even to put like, I don't know, fake phone or something in the thing. We're all so clever. And at JM it's you know, it's not enforced fully everywhere. Like it depends on the teacher and if they're paying attention to the student. Yeah. Do

065we know anything from what other districts are I mean because I know some of them use those like the yonder pouches where it's actually locked and as opposed to just being in a space. I think so. We actually had talked a little bit about those locking pouches. They're very cost prohibitive. I think that that is a a significant concern. Um, and I think when we initially came up with the procedure last year, there was some talk about can we require kids to put them in the pockets in their high school classrooms, but we felt like that the principles really felt like that was a um maybe a battle that they didn't want their teachers to have to fight every single period and they felt like um they could efficiently monitor the classroom and uh make

066sure that those are away. Although I would say what our survey results have shown and our principles acknowledged is that that isn't necessarily the case. I think that's more of a concern at the high school level where kids can have them on them. They're not supposed to have them in their pockets. They're supposed to be in their backpack, but short of patting kids down, which we would never do. Um there are lots of ways for them to hide them. And the the fake phone is a real thing. I mean, we had a kid last year at Kellogg. I think I don't maybe four, maybe five. I mean, I don't even know. So, there are kids who have multiple phones. They just keep them as dummy phones. So if they get it taken away, they give

067you one that doesn't work so they can keep the one that does. So those th those instances are few and far between, but they are they are definitely disruptions to this procedure in the system. Um I know that the high schools have talked about um having something standardized like that. But I think that carrying that out with consistency is what they were concerned about. So ultimately they offered uh some sort of collection container if a teacher wanted but otherwise they could come up with a system in their classroom that would work best for them too. I would interject really quick too that the headphones are also an issue. So I think that because they're they're hiding them underneath hoods, hats, hijabs, you name it. They find a way to hide it and it's there. And

068what they'll do is they'll connect to the phone, put the phone in the pocket, and then they're listening to whatever they're listening to the whole hour. So, I think that um perhaps the cell phone policy could also include the electronics, you know, in the ear as well because those are a big distraction and it's become a status symbol too as well with the kids to have those in. But the watches, director Cook, did you have something? Um yeah, I I was just gonna note that um um what I what I think would make sense at the high school for sure is to have an expectation of no notifications that are distract I mean that's that's like standard in the real world um that we're preparing these kids for. When you go to a meeting and

069you're sitting down at a conference table, everybody silence their phones. we're going to talk for a little bit and we don't want that interruption because we know like if you get a chime or a ding or something, you're going to check just like um we expect the students to do um if their parents are texting them in the middle of the of the classroom. So that seems like a norm that would be useful to enforce and have like a common understanding of um because then I think it's probably less important whether the cell phone's in the pouch or in the backpack or in the pocket even as long as it's not audible. Well, as the educator in the room, I want to be able to empower them to take on that responsibility and have that

070integrity to do the right thing even when no one's looking, right? And that's something that I strive because they're going to be adults and they have to know how to do this when they're, you know, post RPS, but and I would say that we're more strict about it at the very beginning of the year, but then at towards the end of the year, I'm now handing them off to 10th and 11th and 12th grade, and I want them to be able to make those decisions for themselves and know the difference. So I think it's a fine line that we walk on restriction but also empowerment. Yeah. And I I should say I wouldn't know the first thing about how to effectively manage a classroom. So whether containers or some other thing makes makes sense for

071a classroom teacher, I I don't know, but just the notification piece is the part that comes to mind for me in the high school setting in particular that actually rang clear in the screeners movie. Um the they were interviewing kids and talking about the distractions and the vibration in the pocket and they were in the middle of interviewing one of the girls and and they had asked her a question and you could tell she was distracted by something and she was like hold on I just have to check this quick because it's buzzed like eight times since you've been interviewing me. And I was like that's it right there except that happens in the middle of the science lab. It happens in the middle of an English uh test. It happens in the middle of

072your whatever you're learning in FIAD. And so that that was such a perfect example of that and I think kids really resonated with that example when uh when we watched that video together. We've actually done an exercise at JM where we'll teach the class and then we tell the kids we tell them to put their phone on the desk and every time it goes off I don't care if it's a Snapchat, Tik Tok, YouTube, whatever notification you get and you have to go make a tick on the board and by the end of the hour they are blown out of the water by how much how many notifications they've received in one class period as a class. Dr. Bravo. Yeah. Uh and I just want to thank you uh for sharing uh how you are

073um entrusting our students with uh the recognition that it's really on them. The onus is on them. uh you are there to guide assist uh in that development and that may speak in part to what director uh Whitehorn had alluded to u equipping our students preparing them to uh not just be a consumer but a creator innovative way of becoming more accountable responsible so thank you for sharing that I think it relieves me uh potentially the board as a whole of what are we going to do what are we going to do when in practice you're doing that so thanks again One one last piece is that we talked about um at the policy committee meeting last week um MSBA has a model policy for um cell phone usage. Um, but what we decided with

074the input from the cabinet administration is that we're going to keep the cell phone policy statement that we currently have in policy 524 that authorizes the superintendent to develop a procedure, which we have. Um, but we're going to take the language of the procedure and put it in a schoolboard procedure like 524A or something so that it has a permanent home and then anytime it needs to be changed, it can be changed at the direction of the superintendent and then the board has a year to review it and approve it just so it doesn't fall off of I know you'll be reviewing it regularly and updating it, but it'll it'll have that permanent home where it can always be found. I'm already looking at the MSBA model policy just to see how it aligns with

075our procedure and what updates might need be. Yeah. Perfect. Well, thank you. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Sorry that I brought myself onto the table. No one's perfect. Our next item is a monitoring item. This is the cradle to career cradleto career partnership update. Superintendent. Thank you, Madam Chair. I see Julie Rusek who's our executive director of the cradle to career partnership coming on up. Uh Julie is well known to many of you as a longtime educator in RPS. Um we have a lot of community partners in Rochester and none are more important to moving the agenda forward than the cradle to career partnership. And uh I'm proud to sit on the leadership team for Cradle to Career and uh Julie and I recognize that it has been quite a while since the board

076has had an update. And so I know many of you have gone to the annual summit and been engaged, but we thought this was important for board members and then for others who are watching to get an overview from and an update from Julie. So thank you for your leadership and welcome. Thank you for having me. It's nice to see you all. It has been a long time. I think it's been over three years since I've sat at this table. So, I'm a little nervous. Um, and you get the other r tonight, the one that won't jump off the stage at graduation and hopes to persspire significantly less at this presentation than at the graduation. So, uh, again, thank you so much for having me. Uh, it's really nice to see you and to be

077able to talk a little bit about Cradle to Career and what's been going on with our initiative. Uh, for some of you, this might be the first time that you've heard about Cradle to Career. For others, uh, you were part of founding it. So, I'll try to uh meet all of your your needs and expectations as I go. So, let's just start by talking about what is Cradle to Career. This is our elevator pitch. Cradle to Career is a communitywide initiative that works to improve educational outcomes for every child in Rochester by transforming the way that partners work together. What we call our unique value proposition is this last part, transforming the way partners work together. We do not provide any direct service to students and families in the district or in the community. Uh

078we convene the partners who provide the direct service and they're really up until a few months ago we considered ourselves the only initiative convening those partners or partners like this until a new initiative came to town called any path home. So convening partners around specific uh systemic issues that no one partner can solve by themselves is a large task and something that I'm really proud to be part of and leading for the last three years. So a little bit it's called collective impact if you've never heard this term before but really again it's about convening those partners around very large systemic issues and tackling them together. So, I'm going to talk to you a little bit tonight about who we are and and what we've been up to. So, we are one of 75 communities

079across the country that is doing this type of work, collective impact work, and we align under a national organization called Strive Together. Strive Together provides us with a lot of supports, professional development, guidance. I have a a coach that I meet with on a monthly basis that's really guiding me through the theory of action best practices that they've come up with uh nationally and feel very supported through our national organization. At the state level, we are one of nine communities that is implementing uh similar work. Four are in the metro area and five of those communities are in greater Minnesota. and we organize ourselves at the state level as the education partnerships coalition. And I think it's important to note that we were able to advocate uh in the last session, not this this most

080recent but the previous session for a small amount of base funding in the education budget. So working uh getting this work supported at the state level. It's a small part of our budget, but it's some consistent funding that we have to be able to continue to do this work. And like I just mentioned, we're one of two initiative initiatives now uh that are doing this type of work. Any Path Home is an initiative here in town uh supported by Rochester Area Foundation and a variety of partners that are working to address homelessness here in our community. How are we organized? I would say the heartbeat of our work is around this first bullet, our collaborative action networks. They're also known as work groups and they organize around different developmental stages of children and youth. So

081currently we have two work groups or networks that exist in the early childhood sphere. We call them the prenatal to age three group and the transition to kindergarten group. That group is mainly looking at issues that exist for children and families around ages 3 to five. And then our third group that we have up and running is our high school graduation group. You can see below there are two other uh work groups in italics that will probably be the next two groups that we open up in the future. Another important piece of our work is civic engagement. We have a staff member Beth who uh is responsible for running our parent and family council and also for eliciting student voice and leadership across the community. And I would say this piece has been pivotal to

082the work of our of our networks. So if you take a look at that picture at the bottom, uh that's most of you probably know Cada. Who doesn't know Cadia? um Cadia and Abby, two members of our parent council who came to one of our network groups to really bring that parent voice and and they provide kind of I would say uh real life perspective and live perspectives uh to professionals who are meeting at the network level and sometimes they'll say your idea is terrible you should think about this or they'll be supportive of our of the ideas that come out of the networks and maybe have some additional comments of that would be really great. What about transportation? So, making sure that we're really centering the voices of students and families has been pivotal

083to our work. We also have a data and research uh staff person who works really closely with your data and research staff people as well as other data and research folks across the community, a communications lead and as superintendent Muel mentioned a very robust leadership table of 23 members that represent a variety of uh sectors across our community. Please don't read this. Uh this is really just to show you a a update or a visual of our strategic plan. Uh it is organized under four pillars. Shared community vision, evidence-based decisionmaking, collaborative action, and investment in sustainability. And really that's underneath that are all of the benchmarks that we use to measure our progress. And up until this point, most of that progress has been foundational in nature. How do we put everything in place so

084that we can work to improve outcomes for every child in our community? A little bit of data that we're very proud of. Uh we submit an assessment to strive together, our national c our national organization on an annual basis. And since our strategic plan was approved by our board, our leadership table in the last year and eight months, we have seen the progress that you see on your screen. So we are organized in different gateways or categories of progress. Our current category is the sustaining gateway and when our strategic plan was approved we had met five of 11 or 45% of the benchmarks needed to uh meet that entire category and to date we are at 12 of 13. So they've even added two additional benchmarks and we're at 92%. So that's growth of 45%

085in that gateway. And our next gateway that we be we'll be moving to as we work towards uh systems transformation. So actually transforming our systems is the systems change gateway. And when we started our work on our strategic plan, we had met zero of the six benchmarks that you need to get even into that gateway or category. And today we're at five of six. So that's a growth of 83%. In under two years, which feels pretty good. So what does that actually mean? What are our networks talking about and what are they focused on? Uh they are data driven. So everything you see on this screen comes from some extensive uh um deep dives into both qualitative and quantitative data around these topics. And then we actually ask for feedback from our leadership table who

086oftent times are um the knowledge holders of best practices around what we can do in these different areas. So our prenatal to age three group is focused on two areas. Increasing access to adequate prenatal care and childare access. Our transition to kindergarten group is focused on enhancing adults understanding of children's social emotional learning needs. And I would also say to that uh in the data we've collected we also know that we need to provide some professional development to the adults who are caring for children in terms of social emotional learning and mental health supports that they need as well as childcare access. And then at the high school graduation level, we are focused on increasing graduation rates, which we were so proud of the district's data in terms of uh growth that was seen overall

087and spec and for specific categories and we are doing that through post-secondary planning which consists of some pretty uh deep dives around FAFSA completion. uh you talk about MTSS, the MTSS model here in RPS and we really believe that we're providing with our partners tier 2 and three supports for FAFSA completion and we're seeing huge gains in terms of students that are coming to our collective and families to ask for supports around FAFSA completion and then also really working here with our partners around uh work experiences. We're kind of doing some pre-work right now in terms of helping uh district staff with the Zello buildout uh in relationship to different uh community partners that need to be uploaded into the Zello database so that there's a robust offering uh to students in terms of different

088opportunities they could access for work experience. And then our parent and family council is focused on uh hopes and dreams data collection. So making sure that we're representing to our networks what are the hopes and dreams that parents from birth pre-birth even until workforce have for their children and how can our work align with those hopes and dreams. And then as I mentioned before that really tight alignment between our parent council and our work groups is paramount. This is just a few quotes that some of our partners have said about our work and what they've seen in our community. We're really proud of uh people knowing our name, but not just knowing our name and actually being able to talk about what we're doing. So, how are we aligned with Rochester Public Schools? I would

089tell you we wouldn't exist if we didn't have you all as partners at the table. We have partners at the table at the leadership table level and at every single one of our networks. And most of the parents that meet with us at our parent council are parents of Rochester public school students. So there is significant overlap at all areas and levels of our work. Uh I was taking a look at your new steps to success and I highlighted them. Our work especially around uh post-secondary preparedness we have direct connection to at least nine of those steps and the work that we're doing probably more. So really making sure that we're in alignment with those steps to success and the mindsets really overlap with our uh mission vision and goals for the work of cradle

090to career. We are working with and uh yeah I would say working with our community school sites in terms of the skip planning process and providing some needs assessment support uh to them in terms of the codeesign and utilizing codeesign to talk a little bit about ninth grade on track and what that actually means to students and families. So, we'll be providing some uh qualitative data to the high schools as they go to Chicago, I believe, in June to talk more about 9th grade on track data. And I would say overall just complete alignment wherever we can find it with your strategic plan and our strategic plan and as I mentioned before involvement all the way from prek through high school. A couple of challenges. It would not be a a fair presentation if I

091didn't name for you some challenges that we're experiencing. The first is really around our staffing. We call ourselves the backbone. There are only seven of us that think about this work full-time. Everyone else is a volunteer. So, we know that we need to make sure that we're equipped and staffed to support support the long-term success of our partnership. And there are some things that we need to do there to to address that. But really I wanted to name for you that we're also um working on our collaborative action workg groups. We have noted in some surveying that we have done especially in this last year that attendance has become really spotty within our work groups. And as you see here on this scale that number three represents uh a response of I'm dedicated to being

092part of the work but my attendance will be sporadic. So, we know that one of the things that we really need to do is to take a look at both uh the content of our work and the process of how we're doing our work and make some changes moving forward to both have higher attendance and engagement at all of our work groups. So, hearing all of this and with two minutes and 40 seconds left on the clock, uh, one of the things I just wanted to mention to you all is that it is an honor to do this work and to partner uh, not only with the school district but with our community- based organizations and volunteers to really make sure that we are helping students realize realize success realizing success uh, from cradle to

093career. And um my question before I take any questions from you is how do you think how do you all think that Cradle to Career can support in advancing the next wave of Rochester public schools work? We want to as the superintendent mentioned maintain our um highly collaborative partnership at all different levels. And so hearing from you in terms of where what your thoughts are and how we can be the best partner we can be is something that we really take to heart and will then act upon. You want to do that now? So well should I just one more little so maybe we can come back to that but maybe I'll plant that seed for you to think about. It would not be um a presentation if I didn't do a shameless plug for

094our annual education summit, which uh was a huge compliment to me when the superintendent said, "Well, Julie, I guess this has become a thing." And I really I' I've thought like, "Yes, finally we've arrived." So, please save the date. We're actually moving to a larger location because we have outgrown St. Mary's campus and we will be at Mayo Civic Center this year from 9:00 to 5:00. And uh we have a surprise coming in the evening that the mayor is helping me set up with a very special guest speaker. So more to come on that. And thank you so much for letting me present to you. Board members, questions, comments. Superintendent, do we want to answer her question? We could answer question, ask question, whatever you'd like to do. Director Wel. Well, I'm excited. I I

095really uh I've been following you guys for a while. Um and I'll go ahead I'll go ahead and kick it off. Why not? Um so my I I love the work. Um I'm excited about what you all are doing. I do want to ask you if you have given any thought to um uh to the medical side of it. So the early intervention part that two to four that golden hour um space because we know that we are we are seeing a growth and increase of um our black and Hispanic boys being prepared for kindergarten, but we still have a big gap, right? So, we're still a lot of missing information. Um and from a community perspective, uh there's frustration with parents getting the information of the help that their kids need a little late,

096right? So, you know, they're getting it in kindergarten, but we know that the window to reverse some of this is that two to that age two to four, right? So um and unfortunately if your child is missing milestones um like at nine months at one year you know they're not automatically referred to an early intervention you know department and you know medically um you know if your kids had asthma they refer you directly into respiratory. Have you guys looked into any of that or how to um how to help parents, you know, better advocate for that? Because a lot of parents feel that frustration and it is frustrating to find out that, you know, in fifth grade there's there's a gap or my child is behind and to find out at age six or seven

097that some of this could have been prevented had I known that there were these things available at age two. Right. So, are you doing any work with that? I'm really glad that you're asking that question uh because our prenatal to age three workg group uh we have co- conveners that really help us set the tone of the meeting and plan for the meeting and um at the prenatal to age three level our conveners are uh three different staff members fromstead county public health and they were at the table when we were standing up this they prenatal the prenatal network is our newest work group and so they were at the table with us as we were designing what this could look like and what that kind of population level data was that we could take

098a look at and measure for improvement. And what they brought to the table was actually adequate access to prenatal care. And you may not know this, but since 2011, uh, Olmstead County has pregnant people in Olmstead County have accessed adequate prenatal care at lower rates than the state average, which when we share that, I know when we share that locally, uh, we get this response of really in Rochester, uh, and it's been pretty consistent. And even compared against other uh counties that are similar in size and makeup to us, we still are at having people access adequate prenatal care at lower rates. And when the county disagregated that data, they found that if a pregnant person was either black or African-American, a 15 to 19, or had less than a high school diploma, they were

099accessing prenal prenatal care at an even lower rate. So we know that there's this intersection between health and education and starting there at the earliest years of just accessing prenatal care and understanding why some pregnant people were not and how we could maybe inform the medical system of educationally why it would be important for people to have their adequate visits and and have supports through those conversation those tough conversations both before a baby was born and after they were born. So you don't wait until they're two, four, five to have questions or conversations around specific concerns, you're doing that earlier. And so we use that data. We did a codeesign around that data as well and really identified a number of barriers that community members were were facing in terms of accessing prenatal care here

100in our community. And now with the help of Anna, one of our facilitators, and Greg, who wasn't able to be with us tonight, we are putting some pilots in place uh mostly around doula and doula support um to help uh hopefully positively impact that data. So we are definitely seeing an intersection between education and health and want to explore that even further. Thank you. Dr. Mccclofflin, I kind of wanted to answer your question about how what to do next kind of thing. I really think that opening the network for the postsecondary preparedness will be key. Do you have a time frame for that and how that will happen? It's slightly organic and also financial and so um I would say in a way it's kind of semiopened already because the partners that are sitting at

101the table with us around FAFSA completion are also most of our postsecary partners and so as we continue to see success with our FAFSA completion pilot I anticipate we'll just very naturally open up or or bring to our leadership table the possibility ility of opening up that network. But I agree with you. It's it's probably our very next network too. And in your structure, do you get to choose to do that or are there barriers from the national or state that No, it's very it's very locally controlled and um like I said, organic in nature and timely. So we would bring a recommendation to our board and then they would either approve or not approve that. At this point, I I feel very supported, especially with the data that we're bringing forward and the success

102we're having with this collaboration around FAFSA completion that were we to bring something forward around post-secondary I don't know Dr. Pel maybe you want to say something but um I feel like it would be a a appropriate next step. Thank you. Oh, director. Sorry. And um being one of the original members of the leadership table along with Amy Ike um I just wanted to say you know it's exciting to see how far Cradle to career has come and uh I think um much of what was envisioned early on has come to pass and want to encourage uh the continued u work that you're putting forth as ED and um I'm thinking Um, and not to put the board chair or the board uh in awkward position, but you know, oftentimes we will uh have board

103assignments to different entities, if you will. And this may be uh something that we might want to consider. uh though we do have the superintendent is part of the current leadership table. I don't know if there would be a need or a value uh but but certainly I think uh we stand in support of uh what uh cradle to career is doing accomplishing and and the vision that uh has been put forth. Uh you'll certainly see me at the October event. uh I haven't attended in a while, but I see it's time for me to re-engage and and so thank you for that reminder. Well, I have a answer to your question, maybe one um and maybe a question to your question, but when I look at the transition to kindergarten network and the strategy

104of the Minnesota Department of Education successful learner equation, I know we talk a lot about even though we have a robust pre-k program through RPS that there's so much that happens for our students before we even are able to start working with them that affect um what extra supports they need, right? They're they're they're sort of behind at the starting line. Um, and I'm wondering how much we're already doing it or if we could do it better if we're understanding where our students are who are our early learner or kindergarten learners, first grade learners who are struggling the most and sort of back look at their experiences in prek. Is that um successful learner equation like is there are there measurements that we can match between the what happens before kindergarten and where we're seeing

105our kids entering kindergarten and figure out then exactly what can you do as cradle to career to really work in that pre-k space. So, that's probably the million-dollar question, and it's it's been one that that work group has been struggling with since that workg group stood up because at the early childhood level, there is no universal data point that can be collected because children are in a variety. In early childhood, they call that mixed delivery. So, they are receiving care in a variety of different settings, places, and ways. be it with grandma at grandma's house, child care, preschool, inhome center, neighbors house, or a mixture of all of those things. And so that workg group is has struggled for a long time to find a universal data point to help them drive forward in terms

106of understanding growth. There's been a lot of qualitative data collection to to understand what those experiences are. uh there's been this uh you referenced the successful learner equation from the Minnesota Department of Ed. We also did a codeesign around that to understand what are people's current beliefs because the successful learner equation says children have one requirement for going to kindergarten and that's to be five years old. And we as the adults need to be ready for the kindergarteners. The kindergarteners only have to be five. That's the only requirement to come to kindergarten. And so, how do we understand what people currently believe around what most would call kindergarten readiness and and where we're currently at to understand where we need to go. And so, there's there's just so many questions. I think maybe we're really

107hopeful about the state's kindergarten assessment that keeps getting pushed back. Uh, but there will be a a statewide assessment that can be utilized that maybe will help us with that. Kathy, in the meantime, we're still trying to figure out where from other communities, we've been asking this question. And I'll tell you, we're not the only community struggling with this as well. Across the country, they're struggling with understanding a a specific data point or data points that could be used to help them understand that pre kindergarten experience or experiences a little bit better. So, we're working on it. Director, and I I mean, and I guess we're all kind of asking the same thing a bunch of different ways. And that would be interesting. You know, the only common point that I can think of is

108your medical doctor, right? Because they are who see the children before we see the children. And um and I guess it's not a question, more of a comment um because it's something I have experienced, but What you will find um and if you don't do this, I suggest you do it. Read your medical notes after you've been to your appointment because sometimes things are written in your notes that maybe the doctor doesn't share, you know, with you. And even in working with parents who have had these struggles and didn't understand where their kids were, it was written in the medical note, you know, that the child is not meeting milestones, may be potentially delayed. Um and the parent may not that information in the visit, but it's there, but it's not there, right? I just

109wish there was a way or, you know, in a dream world, right, that we could partner in because the data is it's there, but it's just not in the education system. It's in the, you know, the medical system is able to is tracking this, but it's not translating, you know, to the other side. And I don't know how you can create some kind of partnership that would allow access without violating for HIP, right? You know what I mean? But it would be it's complicated, right? Because the data is out there, but how do we access it? So, like Kathy said, we are able to get in there earlier. So, we do have kids that are, you know, better prepared and we're not trying to figure it out at the kindergarten day because some of it

110medically is known, but we don't know it, you know, over here. Well, there are um passionate passionate people that are attempting to address this through our transition to kindergarten network and others. Uh, but I will tell you that our transition to kindergarten network has had this conversation over and over and we're constantly looking for avenues to to figure out where is there where is there a population level indicator or data point that we could use even if it wasn't completely comprehensive but maybe mostly comprehensive that would help us move forward and and it has been around some of those screeners. Could we use screening data? Um there's there's been a variety of things. So, we'll keep working on it until we figure it out. I'm glad you used the word passion because the development of

111Cradle to Career really did come from the passion of those beginning individuals who saw the need for that communitywide partnership um and the focus um so that we could have improved outcomes for all of our kids. Um I I miss being there um on the leadership table. you kick me off after my my terms are up. But um policies, darn policies, darn policy. Um but we do appreciate and please share our appreciation with leadership table and members of the networks, your your backbone team. Um and let's not wait three years before we have another another update and we just look forward to our continued partnership and thank you. Thank you for having me. Nice to see you all. Oh, can I ask one more question? I forgot. Sorry. Yes. Um you mentioned the benchmarks in

112your there's a chart and then somewhere else. Can we access those on your website or how do we learn specific benchmarks? I'm going to send you the one pager that you saw in this in the side slide presentation. I don't know that they are on our website yet as extensively. So um I'll send it I'll make sure that I send it to Ann so you can see. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. All right. Our next item is 8.1, our prep for action of the 2025 2026 budget proposal. The board is scheduled to take action on this item at the June 17th meeting. Superintendent Pal. Thank you, Chair Nathan. You see uh John Carlson and Andy Crockstead coming on up. Um I want to thank John and Andy for their work on this. It's been a

113gigantic effort. um as they um are going to give the board an overview of the proposal that uh is largely in place but that will be refined over the next two weeks as we continue to find out where the legislature is ending up. Um I want to highlight one really critical factor uh ironically uh regarding the referendum that Justin Director Cook pointed out I forgot earlier uh in the evening um on our year in review when we proposed the referendum we said to the community this was not a strategy for new investment. It was a strategy to avoid gigantic cuts that would have undercut our agenda. And there was always a question of at what level should we set that referendum? Um, and the analysis, as board members well recall, was that we should set

114it at $19.4 million generated next year, which was um neither higher nor lower than we thought we needed to be whole. And so there's a very very very important finding in the presentation that you're going to hear tonight though it is about eight slides in which is that we are projecting a slight surplus for the budget next year of about $317,000. That may fluctuate somewhat up or down as we find out the final legislative outcomes and some other changes. But what that means is we set that referendum at the right level. This is what we told the community we were requesting, which was to remain stable. Um, had we come out way ahead, it would have mean we set that referendum way behind. And had I uh were I tonight forced to be recommending major

115cuts to you, it would have meant we set it too low. And so very often in leadership, I think a mistake that gets made is we don't highlight the things we got right. We just focus on uh the things that didn't quite work out. So that's issue number one. The second, as is also in the presentation, but that um could easily be lost, is that we are also meeting the commitments to how we're spending those referendum dollars. And so, you'll also see in the detailed supporting information the board received, the commitments that we said we would make uh in the referendum are all made in this budget. So, highlighting that point as kind of a thesis statement, let me turn it over to John and uh let's get down into the details. All right. Very

116good. Thank you, Superintendent Bell and Sher Nathan. Board members, it's uh our pleasure to be here tonight on June 3rd as you see in our calendar of major budget check-ins with you. We're nearing the end and setting up for hopefully uh approval uh two weeks from tonight. So I also we are on the same wavelength wanted to emphasize balanced budget model. Part of the directions we got in January were to come back with a balanced budget model to implement that. We have done that and we will show you how we arrived at a $317,000 surplus. uh in next year's budget. Uh we wanted to prioritize training our principles in implementing the new balance budget model and the flexibility that the flexible funding provided them. Uh we did that. You recently approved uh skip 2.0 for

117implementation the 2627 school year. So the year ahead includes uh the staff and the leadership structure to advance that work. Um, we obviously are maintaining our commitments to the referendum. As Superintendent Mel just said, we are absolutely maintaining class sizes and teaching loads. We are avoiding school closures and we're preserving our programming. And then as part of this Jan June 17th uh presentation, I think we'll have a separate board item where we'll talk to you about the long-term financial strategy. That's really just taking uh the projected budget, putting it into a five-year forecast, and then giving you clear recommendations as to how we should uh move forward in the uh years ahead. So, here's a quick look. There's a lot of numbers on this uh uh table of this slide, but I want to just

118point out the three numbers on the left there, the big three. So, next year's budget proposes $48 million of new revenues. So, firsttime money into the district next year, $48.8 8 million. Our next year's expenditures are budgeted at $443 million. That means $34 million will come from unspent prior year revenues. Now, you might be wondering right off the bat, I just said we have a balanced budget model. That it is uh in reference to the general fund. Uh the biggest driver of why we have expenditures more than revenues is two weeks ago you approved uh selling some bonds. We get that money on June 12th coming up here. that that money that is going to fund construction projects at Mayo and Kellogg uh John Marshall Stadium this summer counts as revenue in this year. We

119put it aside on June 30th and that becomes a prior year unspent revenue or use of fund balance next year. As we've talked about pupil units or students are our main driver of revenue in the general fund. Next year we are anticipating 16,444 or 40 average daily memberships. That means on any given day we're going to average 16,440 students enrolled at RPS. That's going to in in the state of Minnesota funding formulas drive 17,989 pupil units of revenue. The general education funding formula for the first time since the 2023 legislature enacted the new law will increase at the same rate of inflation. So we are anticipating 2.74%. That was the number that MDA gave MDE gave us earlier this spring. As mentioned the referendum uh provides about $19.4 million. I need to emphasize that that

120money is on a per pupil basis. So, if we have more or less pupils in years going forward, that money uh will fluctuate up or down. Um if you remember to your ballot, you voted on 1,133 per pupil funding added to our revenue authority. So, it's a very key distinction. It's not 19.4 million in perpetuity. We are projecting a small increase in compensatory aid revenue. There was just um agreement in the last couple days that we'll adjust that number um in our favor just very incrementally. Um but we're going to work that into our June 17th um proposal to you. We are no longer showing any revenue whatsoever related to CO er COVID era funding. That is concluded in this school year. And then of course we announced a couple weeks ago that there is

121the discontinuation of a school-based mental health grant. Uh we have projected that that does go through December 31st. So we have maintained uh some revenue in there for the first half of the year as well as the corresponding expense for the first half of the year. So when we look at all funds um a couple other uh revenue points are um and this is good news. This was a law change right at the end of the regular session. Uh we are anticipating now full funding for summer unemployment for our hourly workers. This was something I remember testifying at the start of the session uh in favor of and I'm glad to see that that did make the final cut or that would have been a large unanticipated um expenditure uh without revenue that we would

122have needed to fund. And then you may have been following there's some news about uh lowering the teacher retirement age. And so how the state's going to fund that is partially through giving us a little bit more aid and then charging us a little bit bit more uh TRA uh pension expense. and we're going to have that worked in uh as well for you. Um on the expenditure side, so overall our total district expenditures, all funds are increasing about 3%. Uh $13 million and 82% of that increase or about $1 million is incre is an increase in the general fund, our main operating fund. Uh the main general fund is anticipated to increase by 3.8% next year. So even though we had this influx of uh uh revenue, again we're maintaining a balanced budget. Our

123staffing is going to be very flat. Um our first run of the FTE count shows 2600.4 FTE compared to 2602.9 a year ago. Uh there's fluctuation. We have 13 groups of employees. The largest increases in our teacher group. There are going to be plus 10 there. And then our biggest decrease is in our food service group with a decrease of 7.7. We anticipate our total employee costs. Uh this is salary plus benefits going up 3.1%. And that uh employee salaries and benefits account for 59% of our total general or our total district spending. There was a question before the meeting yesterday. What does that mean in the general fund? It's about the same as it's been. our general fund salaries and benefits about 78 79% of our overall budget. This is how it breaks down.

124Again, we have 13 groups. We have some pluses, we have some minuses. Um but a lot of consistency. Um one thing to note is that uh I think it's around 80ome percent of our positions are directly studentf facing. So think of principles, teachers, education support professionals, student nutrition services, mental and physical health professionals. Those are mostly all positions that work directly with kids. So, the vast majority of the budget goes to serving our students. New this year in our projection of the general fund, we are using an accounting um I call it a best practice and we are going to anticipate that we will have vacancies. One piece of feedback we've heard loud and clear from our union groups as we've sat across the table from them at negotiations is we off we budget our

125historical practice has been budget for all positions that have been requested as if they were filled from day one to the last day of the year. Um but what we've noticed in the data that we're showing you there is that on any given day a couple of our clerical positions are open. Seven positions in our maintenance group are open. And this is again, this is not because we're intentionally not hiring them, but it's we'll fill a position, then another one opens, and we'll fill that one, then another one opens. And so you just acrew a little bit of incremental savings day by day in our budget um by positions that are open for a short period of time. Yes, in some cases there are substitute costs that we pay in le, but sometimes substitutes cost

126a half to three4ers of what the uh regular contracted person would cost. And so what we're doing is we're going to take a deduct of $2.6 $6 million right away in our um budget. Um we feel our professional judgment that this will be okay because this is a trend that we've noticed over many many years now. And so we're going to anticipate that that trend will continue. Um, as we sorted out the data, as we were implementing the balanced budget model, we noticed that 73.7% of the employee costs uh went to the fixed school staffing and the flexible school funding categories added together. 14% are in specialized programs. So those are like CEK, PEK, Phoenix Academy, ALC's, um, those types of programs. And so really 87.7% of our staffing decisions are right out in our

127buildings and in our programs. Compare that to our central office where we spend uh about 8.5% of our budget on central office and 3.7 on our district-wide services. If you take that across the whole entire $443 million district budget, I think we commented in our memo that the central office is about 4.7% of our overall spending. So now I'm just going to dial in on the general fund as this is our largest in our day-to-day fund. That is the one that we concentrate most of our efforts in maintaining u a truly balanced budget. And the general fund, the general fund is u paying for 2410 of our full-time equivalent positions or 93% of our district employees. Um our teachers, ESPs, SNS principles. Again, that adds up to 83% of our positions. And again, we are

128committed to maintaining the class size targets that were in place before the referendum. So, um there was a question um yesterday, why does it look like maybe a school has an increase in student count, but yet their teacher count might be going down? It really just truly depends on how the students sort out and how you divide by those numbers. And that's the exact number of teachers we allocate through fixed staffing. I want to reiterate that we have a team that looks at these numbers every couple weeks all the way through the start of school and even into September. And as we notice um the need to roll out another uh class section, we will ask the superintendent to use our contingency budget. Uh in fact, we did that yesterday. Um and there will be

129a couple more kindergarten sections added that are not included in any of the data that we've given. But we have stronger numbers than we had projected at two of our elementary schools, which is great news. That's exactly the kind of thing we want to have and the perfect reason why we've reserved about 34s of 1% of our overall budget as a contingency budget for just those types of things. So our grand total revenues in the general fund 305 million again this is very common over the years about 72% of that is funded by the state of Minnesota. our property tax levy now because of the increased voter approved referendum does um take a little bit bigger piece of the pie there at 22%. The federal now without COVID funding is now back to more of

130its normal 3% range and then other funding um about 3%. New this year, we wanted to be very explicitly clear where we intend to take prior year unspent revenues and work them into the original expenditure budget. So there's four things really. There's comes down to one thing that's driving this and why if you were to look on paper and say it's there's $35 million of new revenue, $37 million of of expenditures, and there's a gap there and we're saying we have a balanced budget. The reason is we're planning for very similar reasons to the bonds that you sold a couple weeks ago. Uh we're doing that with our technology student use devices. We're borrowing $7 million. That will count as revenue on June 12th. We'll put that aside and then we're going to work about

131a third of that into each budget going forward. FY 26, 27, 28 and likely the process will repeat itself. Over the last couple years, we've also been saving some of our e-ate revenue. It's money that we earned from the federal government um for uh different technology um supports. Um we've put that money in savings as it's been deposited. we put in an assigned fund balance and we believe uh there's a very appropriate use upcoming to use that and it's the Skyward upgrade uh replacement project. So we are um proposing that we use $300,000 of that fund uh for that purpose. We have for the last 14 years been saving money aside for replacement of special education uh type three uh minivan purchases and so we intend to replace five of those vehicles in the year

132ahead. So that money is sitting aside in assigned fund amounts as well. And then one really odd thing, we usually don't get grants where they're paid ahead. Um but MDE did give us this on the attendance pilot program. They gave all the money this school year. So we're going to set aside the unspent portion of it into an assigned fund balance and then we're going to pull uh the salary and benefits cost for the truency coordinator out of that next year. So again, total expenditures, 78% of it's going to go to employee salaries and benefits in the general fund. Purchase services covers things like utilities, insurance, the school bus contracts with first student, kids on the go. We know that those that's a large purchase service right there. That's that's over half of it right

133there. Supplies, material, capital, and some other expenditures. So this is how we kind of bring it all together in the general fund. $35 million of new revenues, $37 million of expenditures. That would on paper look like there's a deficit of $2.5 million, but as just explained, we're intentionally pulling $2.9 million of prior year unspent revenues. And so when we apply that into the mix, uh we do have a projected surplus of $317,000. And then finally, just wanted to wrap up that um in the memo we uh with with Z in Simly, we did go through and and we looked at all the estimates we made a couple years back about what things were going to cost if we spent the $19.4 million on these expenses. Uh they came to $19.8 million to preserve all of

134those things and to keep all the things that we said we were going to do. You might be wondering, well, how are you funding the other 415,000? That's through a variety of other flexible funding sources that our leaders chose to use that on. I didn't know there was going to be a timer, but we're down to 15 seconds left. So, we'll sit in silence and watch your countdown. No, we don't have to. We can go to questions. Does anybody have questions to start with? Well, it was 18 slides in and not eight, but that's okay. Dr. McLaren Mclofflin. Um just at the very beginning, I'm just trying to think one way to ask this the thing about um the bonds being funded June 12th. Is that the right terminology? Yep. And the part about the

135technology, is there any way to do that that's simpler for people on the outside that you know, could it be like midnight on June 30th and you know, something like that so that it's it doesn't appear like we're shifting money around as much to the outside? Let me talk to or have our finance team talk with our auditors about that. there is a other opportunity where maybe they would allow us to call it a deferred revenue and then we apply it in increments as we spend it in the future. I don't think they will allow us to do that but that's a question we can ask and that would meet that concern. You just feel like people from the outside who don't pay close attention to this might not follow all of that and if

136there's a way to simplify that for the general this discussion too with our CBACK or community budget advisory committee last week where it kind of was like oh no we're $34 million of deficit. No, we have this money that we're actually we're going to have this huge surplus in this school year. We put the money aside. It's excess revenue over expenses and then we intentionally plan to pull it out in the year ahead. So, and maybe as you explain that a different visual might be a flowchart of some sort, right? Rather than a chart, you know, that if arrows and things might be helpful. One thing Andy and I had talked about too is maybe showing a graph of um the bars the the revenue equals the expense, but this amount of revenue is like

137new revenue and this amount is uh prior year unspent revenue and the two bars equal the same. And so visually like it all matches, right? Yes. We're not truly deficit spending and it's prior year unspent revenue that we don't it's not just a a pot of money. It's revenue that was designated for a certain purpose from its birthday. That's right. We're not planning on using any of our unassigned or our pure general fund fund balance that's sitting there for uh to meet board policy that needs to be 8% or greater of our expenditures. We're truly pulling from these assigned fund balances where we've intentionally said this money is for this thing at a future time. So, we're leaving it unspent now and putting it over here and then we'll pull it back in at a

138later time. Have any other Dr. Cook? Um, so I I certainly appreciate the uncertainty around the revenue side of the budget. Um, one of the things that I noticed, and we we certainly don't need to go into details, but just I appreciated all the attachments. I can't help myself. Um, one of the things that comes through is that there's a projected decrease in the amount of special education aid. Um, and that's probably partly a reflection of a projected less enrollment or um, but the the forecasted expenses for special education, even though we're expecting less students, is not declining. And that's hardly a surprise for people that have been following. Um, one of the biggest drivers of the financial condition of the district for quite a while is the growing disparity between funding for special education

139services and the cost of providing those services. And could you just maybe talk through a little bit of the process for how we go about projecting the expected costs for for special education in particular. um just sort of at a high level to help the board understand how that is done. Yeah, this is really driven by our experts in the special education department, our leadership team over there. Um really dialing in and looking at numbers of minutes of service that are needed, number of students moving from building to building, grade to grade, and really trying to put together a staffing pattern that absolutely meets the expectations of the individualized education plans. Um, from there it's a matter of us doing the work on calculating the per FTE cost and other contracted services that might be

140needed by providers uh that we don't have the experience on staff, the specialized equipment. A large piece of it is the specialized transportation. So that kind of falls under my area and we're trying everything we can do to think more efficiently. how can we um use different equipment that might have a cheaper per trip rate and things like that as we're trying to plan ahead for um future costs and special ed transportation. But I know that this is going to be an emphasis I shouldn't say I know I assume this will be an emphasis of of future strategic planning and trying to make sure that we're really doing what we can um to make sure we manage the the limited resources we have and maybe the declining or stable resources our state is going to

141have in this area of their budget too. So, um, we're very concerned about looking ahead as to it can't be unlimited growth, but we also have to balance it out. We have to absolutely serve the kids that are in front of us, right? So, we have to figure out what's the best best mix of of cost and and services that we're providing. So, at a high level, it's it really is looking at the services needed for the kids that we have enrolled now and then sort of moving that ahead one grade year and mapping that on to Yep. They do a lot of planning on that in their staffing and talking about like this one to one pair is moving from Kellogg now you need to put it in the century budget and you know

142really knowing who the kids are. I mean that's one interesting thing that I've noticed as I've done these staffing meetings is how well our special ed staff know the students that they're serving and where they're going to be and what their needs are going to be at the next building they go to. Very helpful. Thank you. Uh Dr. Cook, I appreciate the question. um not least because the legislature has just uh passed the uh significant authorization that there's going to be a task force that's going to be tasked with significant savings in special ed. That's going to be very important for us to watch. It'd be great to have someone from Rochester on that task force if anybody out there is listening. Um but to your point about special education costs in the last few

143years um and our both finance team and the special education leadership team deserves a lot of credit for this. We've made significant progress in much more tightly defining our staffing ratios in special education uh in Rochester public schools. To my satis they were not sufficiently tightly defined. And then the reason I wanted to jump in here because board members have received the emails and even public comment from uh parents who are understandably concerned when we are reallocating case management services for instance or special education staffing time or education support professional staffing time from a school um which is based on changes in student enrollment. Um, historically, I think it's fair. I'm generalizing. There was a period where when we had new needs uh for special education services in one school, we met those needs as

144we should. We did not reduce the staffing in other schools in a corresponding fashion. Um, the only way to have our special education services um be as cost-effective as we can is to make that reduction, which is really tough. But um you've heard from those uh folks the deaf and heart of hearing program at uh Bamber Valley for instance has uh repeatedly raised this concern and I understand that but we are driving our special education investments by the actual student count and the disability needs in those buildings. Now we're always sensitive to the needs of kids. It's not a rigid formula but it's a formula. Um and so I wanted to jump in. If we don't make those difficult decisions, um the very significant expense that is part of these uh services really balloons further

145that it would already based on the fact that as you point out the funding doesn't come close to meeting the required uh the service requirements. So a very important point about that allocation of the the um resources that we need to stay very tight on. And there was something that John said just a moment ago about uh approving positions tied to enrollment. I am right now personally approving every new position in the district, which I believe in a district of our size is actually not best practice. I actually would prefer to delegate that. But my biggest concern is that we lose the discipline that we've developed over the last several years in terms of not solving every problem by adding staff. Um, and so I don't approve a replacement of an existing position, um, or

146an elimination of a position where there are too few kids, but I personally approve every single FTE increase in the district at this time. Um, with a recommendation from the content lead and the finance office in support of the investment. Um, and I ask a lot of hard questions about do we need it. I'm I'm proud that we're flat with staffing on this budget, but I'm just going to call it out. We're projecting to be down 400 kids, but we're flat on staff. That is not a sustainable strategy, folks. The staffing ratio is going to have to bend downward in the years ahead. I think in this year of continuity following the passage of the referendum, this is an appropriate budget. But we uh will not be in the good relatively good position we're in

147if our staffing continues to remain flat as enrollment uh heads in the different direction. So an important uh note for the future. Not something that um we need to deal with this year. We should enjoy this, but we're we're headed for difficult decisions ahead. And I think to build on both the question and the response, just to reemphasize, we calculate our expenditures on special ed based on the needs of our special education students. We don't look to say, well, the state's only going to give us this much money, so we're only going to give them this much services. They're not connected. And obviously, the state's calculation of special education revenue has been um insufficient for a number of years. I should have asked you ahead of time. Do we know what the cross subsidy is

148going to be about this budget? We can assume that about 80% of our cost will be reimbursed at the of the expenses we apply to the state. Let's call that a deficit of around 1920 million. So it continues to go up from what was about 18 I think I remember last time we we had something. Um, and I think that's just important to to re-emphasize is we're spending what we feel we need to spend in the most efficient way possible, but the gap continues and unfortunately depending on what the legislature does in the future may grow even more if they if they reduce their funding for special education. It could be Minnesota's requirements are quite much higher than many other states for special education services. I think there's a lot of reason to be proud

149of that. There is a financial implication to that. So, I'm assuming that that task force will be taking a look um at that at that reality. Um very important issue for us that we certainly could schedule uh if the board is uh interested uh some deeper discussions of special ed service model and finance um next year. There questions. I have a question about the budget memo. Is that okay? Um, and I think I put it in the Q&A, but and it's a little bit in the weeds, but table 11, there's the difference between the 2024 estimate in the proposed budget for 2526. All of that seems to make sense except the one line where the reading specialists and it's about halfway down. Reading specialists and curriculum to support implementation of the science of reading from

150early childhood through high school. That seemed like a pretty significant change. Yeah. And can you help me understand what that what that is? Part of that when we were trying to make an estimate a couple years ago was um not fully understanding exactly what the needs or the wants or the what what reading beyond the elementary schools would look like. Um what I can say is the budget maintains 18.1 FTE of reading specialists at our elementary schools. We've increased reading coaches from 3 to 3.7. We have some new interventionist positions. I know we don't love that word. We're trying to think of a different word than interventionist. U but those generally mean extra reading and math support teachers. And then we have some new reading secondary u positions. I remember sitting at this table eight

151years ago and we had to cut unfortunately reading at middle school high school and that came out of the budget. So, you know, I think it's a combo of referendum is supporting a few of these positions, the $189,000 that we put in the table, and then there was there was flexible fund, there was compensatory funding, there was title one funding. So, our principles kind of braided their funding where needed to make the investments in literacy um to maintain and actually increase our level of reading teachers. So, if I understand what you're saying, then the referendum dollar portion of that was smaller than expected because it's funded from other places because we found other funding sources. Got it. Okay. I want to make sure it wasn't absolutely deduction aren't cuts that I can see um in

152our budget in the reading department. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you. I I think I'm okay. I think Director Mcoffin, you're you're raising a really important point and and this table in this chart in the table in the memo will find a place on our website as we committed to the community once you approve the budget. I think your point is an excellent one. we should either have an asterisk or in fact amend that dollar amount because uh we are meeting the exact referendum commitment in terms of staff staffing support for literacy. Um we didn't ultimately need to tap the referendum dollars because there were other appropriate funding sources and as you know the referendum wasn't intended much as we might have wished it could have been as an increase it was intended to maintain.

153So, I think you're catching a very important point that we'll need to essentially say just as you just articulated, director Mclofflin, that those uh positions are being funded from other sources at the level committed to in the referendum. Okay, then I'll ask a question. Um with the new um structure in the balanced budget model where principles were able to allocate those flexible funds, did we see any um significant trends in um either position shifts or uh decrease in FTEES and positions that like if you just look at the list of FTEEs and say oh you know these have gone down by a certain amount and and we can't ask for the reasons because we don't have the principles here to understand what the shifts were. But were there any patterns that we saw in staffing

154and he sat through the staffing meetings this year? Nathan, nothing significant. Um you can tell though that that overall we're up in teachers and so we're and we're down in enrollment. So obviously principles through their flexible dollars prioritize some teaching positions such as reading specialists and some of these others that have been mentioned. And when you say teaching, it's not necessarily just classroom teachers. May not be just classroom teachers. Correct. Um some some principles did use flex dollars to perhaps add an additional uh section in the elementary level uh in the elementary schools to keep class sizes even lower. Um that would be a use. Uh in terms of anything dramatically shifting from year to year, not any one particular position um comes to mind other than again the aggregate has changed. You can see

155they prioritize teaching over some of the ESP positions for example. Anything else? Board members, we have another cut at this in a week. So all right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Our next agenda item is prep for action. Again, our policy committee recommendations from our May 29th meeting. Uh the policy committee met on May 29th and proposes the following recommendations to the school board. This is the first of two prep for action briefings before the policies will be on the consent agenda on July 15th. Director Workman, would you like to start our briefing? Sure. So, as part of the um policy committee's trienal review of policies, there weren't any cabinet changes or MSBA changes to the following policies and procedures. Procedure 413B, which is a companion to policy 413, harassment and violence.

156Policy 417, chemical use and abuse. Policy 505, distribution of non-school sponsored materials on school premises by students and employees. Procedure 505A, which is a companion to policy 505. Policy 510, student activities. Policy 528, student parental, family, and marital status non-discrimination. Policy 531, the pledge of allegiance procedures 610A, the companion to policy 610, which was field trips. Policy 903, visitors to school district buildings and sites. So we will just review in more detail tonight the policies and procedures that did have some change. So uh the purpose of policy 413 harassment and violence is to maintain a learning learning and working environment free from harassment and violence on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, familial status, status with regard to public assistance, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression or disability.

157So this policy was originally rewritten for us by our legal council. Um they have reviewed and have also recommended that we should con include an additional definition of the disability from MSBA model policy 413. There is a procedure uh 417 also has a change. Um it's in the form of a flowchart that shows the student chemical health violation guidelines. The current version of the flowchart draft will be updated as follows. Under the box SRO contacted, the text will be updated as follows. Any paraphernalia, substances or other drug, alcohol or tobacco related items confiscated potential testing. Um, so alcohol or tobacco was what was added. Uh policy 418, drug-free workplace, drug-free schools, is meant to maintain a safe and healthful environment for employees and students by prohibiting the use of alcohol, toxic substances, medical cannabis, non-

158intoxicating cannabonoids. I don't think I've ever seen that word before. I hope I'm pronouncing it right. Edible cannabonoid products and controlled substances without a physician's prescription. And there were edit um edits made just to uh make more clear of language from the 2024 MSBA model policy update. Policy 501 school weapons policy is to asssure a safe school environment for students, staff, and the public. This was part of the regular three-year review. Uh there are no u MSBA model policy changes and one minor word change from will to May. Uh, policy 506, student discipline, sets forth the school board's expectations for student behavior, as well as procedures for the superintendent and school district administration to establish guidelines uh about how the expectations outlined in this policy will be enforced. Again, this was an annual review and

159there were minor word changes to conform with Minnesota statute changes. Then uh procedure 521A contains a student disability non-discrimination form. A change was recommended to match updated definitions in the previously updated MSBA model policy 521. And there is a draft of that procedure attached. Policy 533 wellness is to set forth methods that promote student wellness, prevent and reduce childhood obesity, and assure that school meals and other food and beverages sold and otherwise made available on the school campus during the school day are consistent with applicable minimum local, state, and federal standards. This is part of the three-year review of this policy. There were no MSBA model policy changes. Uh the recommendations are for minor grammar changes and updates in section 4D to clarify that foods brought to school by parents and teachers must must be

160storebought or produced in a commercial kitchen which matches current RPS practice. Policy 605.5 library materials. The purpose is to provide direction regarding the initial selection of library materials and the review of library materials when removal has been requested. Uh, we updated this policy based on recommendations and discussions we had with the RPS library media specialists. In some cases, they more closely align with MSBA model policy and the changes that are being recommended were also reviewed and approved by legal counsel. Procedure 606.5A is a new procedure and it contains the library materials review flow library materials review procedures flowchart and the forms that are associated with the library materials review procedures. Policy 610 field trips. The purpose is to establish requirements and guidelines for student field trips. Updates were made to better match MSBA model policy

161language in section 5B transportation. Policy 806 is crisis management. It's to act as a guide for school district and building administrators, school employees, students, schoolboard members, and community members as to how to address a wide range of potential crisis situations in the school district. There are no MSBA model policy changes to this annual review of the policy, but language was added to address medical emergencies. and procedure 806 which goes along with policy 806. Every year we uh add the new template for the district crisis management plan um to reflect a new school year. Board members, any questions, comments? Um I actually do have a question. Yes. Um give me a number. Um policy 413. Okay. Um, if I understand the summary here is that the policy was originally rewritten for us by legal counsel prior

162to this. Yes. This draft and that there's just a minor change here related to the definition of disability. Right. So, yes. Okay. I was I was looking for a whole that change in the context of reviewing this. Yes. Got it. Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. Anything else? All right, we will come back to this for our second briefing at our next meeting. Uh, next regular meeting. Um, item 9.1 is other business. Um, the current version of the ABCD is available here for reference uh for board members in the community for every school board meeting. Upcoming agenda items are being displayed on slide and include our June 10th study session which is the community budget advisory council conversation. And at the June 17th regular meeting, we have our retirey recognition, our long-term budget strategy, the

163second prep for action on these policy committee recommendations we just reviewed, and our action item is the 202526 budget proposal. Are there any agenda items board members would like to raise for consideration for a future meeting agenda? Hearing none, a reminder upcoming board meeting dates all start at 5:30. We have a study session on June 10th and a regular meeting on both June 17th and July 15th. And hearing no additional business, this meeting is adjourned at 7:40 p.m. Why don't we ever get