001This regular meeting of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:31 p.m. on Tuesday, May 6th, 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 Pel, a non- voting exeicio member, and assistant school board clerk, Miss Anne Kramer. Miss Kramer, would you please call the role? here. 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 which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
002Item 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. Any opposed. The agenda has been approved. The agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at rochesterchools.org/sembly. We have no comments to the board this evening. So we'll move on to item 4.1 information and outreach non-ontinuation of federal grant award. This is an information item. Superintendent Pel. Thank you madam chair and board members. I don't often read uh at board meetings, but uh I do want to share um a message that went out to our uh internal external community this morning that I wrote last night based on a recent development. I'd like to do so so that it is a
003matter of record uh for this board in this district. On April 29th, 2025, Rochester Public Schools received a letter from Mr. Murray bet in the office of planning, evaluation, and policy development at the US Department of Education informing Rochester public schools that a federal grant to prepare and license staff to provide mental health services to Rochester public school students had been terminated effective December 31st, 2025. The letter informed us that funding for the school-based mental health scholars project is being discontinued in the middle of a multi-year grant period, leaving the objectives of the project incomplete and the majority of the people who are participating in the project without the licenses and degrees that the federal grant was awarded to help them earn. The termination of this grant is a big step backward. Thousands of students
004who might have received counseling and support to address challenges to their mental health such as depression, anxiety, and thoughts of suicide will not receive that support unless the US Department of Education reconsiders its termination of this vitally important initiative. The $ 1.9 million federal grant to RPS was designed to address the profound mental health crisis that is affecting students in every community and from every background across the United States today. Toward that end, the federal funds are helping to fill a gap that Rochester public schools cannot fill on its own, enabling talented people who are already working in our school system to earn the licenses and degrees they need to provide students with counseling and other forms of mental health support in our schools. The federal grant covers tuition in the social work program at
005Winona State University, substitute pay for staff while they take classes to earn their degrees, and mentoring and supervision to support these emerging emerging mental health practitioners as they learn their craft. Importantly, while the grant helps people earn their licenses and degrees, it does not guarantee them a job in Rochester public schools. Rather, it only guarantees them an interview for a job. They must then earn that job like any other candidate who applies. The federal grant to Rochester public schools includes an appropriate and common sense emphasis on helping people of color and people who are indigenous earn the degrees they need to provide mental health services in our schools. Twothirds of the participants in the project to date are from those backgrounds while one-third are white. As such, while the grant seeks to increase the number
006of mental health professionals in our school system who are under reppresented when compared to the demographic composition of the student body we serve, it does not exclude people from other backgrounds and life experiences from participating. This spring, six of the people who are participating in the program will earn their licenses and master's degrees and will be able to serve as social workers in our schools and as staff at mental health providers who work with schools in Rochester. We are thrilled at the accomplishment of those six people and thank them for the hard work they've done to reach this personal and professional milestone. However, helping those six people enter new careers to serve our students was supposed to be just the beginning of this project's accomplishments. Another 10 people are currently participating in the program. But
007if this grant is terminated, they will not be able to earn their licenses and degrees. Terminating the grant before these people finish the program is a strikingly inefficient and unproductive use of taxpayer dollars. funds that have already been spent on tuition, stipens, and other expenses for those participants would be largely wasted because those people will not be able to complete the credentials they need to serve in our schools. And beyond the current participants in the program, 12 more people are supposed to begin participating in the project next year and are scheduled to complete the program during the final two years of the federal grant. If Rochester Public Schools is allowed to complete the work that the federal government funded through this grant, by the end of the project, we will have prepared more than two
008dozen talented and dedicated professionals to strengthen student mental health in Rochester and beyond. Rochester Public Schools plans to file a request for reconsideration of the termination of this grant. And I'm hopeful that staff at the US Department of Education will recognize that it is in our nation's interest to pursue innovative strategies to strengthen the mental health of our young people. The termination of this grant has brought the decisions that are currently being made in Washington DC close to home here in Rochester. Some of those decisions will impact larger numbers of people than will be impacted by the termination of the federal mental health grant to Rochester public schools. But if you have spent time, as I have with students who are struggling with mental health, you know that the termination of this grant will be
009a lost opportunity to make a difference in the lives of students who desperately need additional support to thrive in school and in life. Thank you, madam. Board members, do anybody have any comments? And I um as I understand it, we have 30 days to file um a reconsideration, but we have no idea what the time frame might be for a response. That's correct. We were told uh it was a uh one and a half page letter that informed us of this. Um and then we were told we'd be receiving further information from the finance arm of the Department of Education. We've basically received uh uh notice that more information may be forthcoming, but no other details at this time. Director Barlo, uh, was there a cause or reason, uh, included in that page and a
010half letter that we received? Uh, it said that the grant, uh, reflected the priorities of the previous presidential administration and not the priorities of the current presidential administration and so therefore it was being terminated um to reflect that change in um, administrations. Um and I and I will say director Barlow that having previously worked at the department of education in another administration uh presidential administrations always change priorities. However, in my experience, this is the first time where they are literally cutting midstream uh funded uh program that was approved by both the US Congress and the president in a previous administration before it is even complete. One would normally expect that they simply would change future priorities, but in this instance, they are stopping the program of the previous administration midstream and they were quite explicit
011about that. Um, so I'm not trying to be political in highlighting that the letter explicitly said these were the priorities of the previous administration and not the current administration. Jack McLaclin. Um, superintendent, thank you for reading that and thank you for your comments. Um, it's just really disappointing to see this with all the work that we put into our students mental health that it's a big step backwards and I agree it's a lost opportunity. And speaking of the work that our uh mental health team has been doing, I went back and looked at uh the presentation from June and even the presentation uh the year before where they used the Minnesota student survey results to try to set the stage for why this work was so important. And a quarter to a third of Rochester
012public Rochester public school students self-identify themselves as having long-term mental health, behavioral or emotional problems or having been treated for a mental health, emotional or behavioral problem in the past year. So this does not serve a small subset of our students. Um and I agree it is somewhat discouraging. Director Mark. Well, in just to um I think this is going to impact the budget discussion too, but that's for another time. Um but part of the real pain of this of of those kids and there's substantial number who are feeling stressed or anxious or depressed. This was the first line of of help of support. And so many of those kids, if they can get that help at school, they have somebody who knows what they're doing, they can talk with, they may not need, you
013know, to get additional help, professional, additional professional help elsewhere. I mean, if we can handle it at the school right when they feel the need, that is such a good investment. And this is just it's heartbreaking. board members. Thank you. I'm sure the superintendent will keep us updated. Moving on to 4.2, our recognitions. We have a number of groups to recognize tonight and they all make big contributions to the education and well-being our of our students. And we'll start with Director Cook. Thank you, Chair Nathan. Um we are going to recognize National School Nurse Day, which is tomorrow, May 7th. um school nurse appreciation day. Students have a right to have their physical and mental health needs safely met while in school setting and students today face more complex and life-threatening health problems requiring care
014in school. We celebrate our RPS school nurses and their efforts to meet the needs of today's students by providing quality student- centered care and promoting wellness and improving health outcomes for our students. We are grateful for all they do to support students to stay healthy in school, safe, and ready to learn. Director Barlo, on Friday, May the 9th, it is National School Communicators Day. You may have seen our RPS communications team at district events at schools taking pictures and filming uh videos. They will usually have a camera in hand and a smile on their face as they chase after students and help out help out our staff. You have certainly seen the products of their work in website news and stories, creative posters and graphics, social media post, and more. We appreciate their commitment to
015share our RPS stories transparently, honestly, and effectively. Thank you for your work, Director Workman. This week, May 5th through 9th, is National Teacher Appreciation Week. And of course, um, we appreciate our teachers every day that they are in the classroom. But we can't express enough gratitude for the critical role teachers play in driving the success of our students. They are the ones who teach the necessary knowledge and skills for success. But they also inspire and guide our students to become future leaders, innovators, and problem solvers. During this year's teacher appreciation week, let's all of us find a way to show our support for our RPS educators and tell them how much their commitment and dedication to our children is so appreciated. Director Mccclley, going based on our agenda here, National Child Care Provider Day is
016May 19th. As you heard at our April 8th meeting, school age child care, known as SAC, is just as crucial for our students as it is for our families. Our SAC staff provide a safe space for kids to read, play games, interact with other kids their own age, and go on field trips. SAC is an essential resource for families and is beneficial in every aspect. We are grateful for all the people in our SAC program that make it all happen and for SAK's leadership continuing efforts to expand and improve the program. Dr. Martin May 1st was Mayday and more importantly National School Principles Day. Our principles are uh instructional leaders and community builders and they're integral to the growth and education of our students and staff. They are showing their metal especially this year in
017the implementation of the school continuous improvement plans and balanced budget model. We are really thankful for all of our principles and the commitment they demonstrate every day. director. And in alignment with our agenda, we are also recognizing National Lunch Hero Day, which is was on May the 2nd. Not all heroes wear capes. Sometimes they wear hairetss and plastic gloves. The 2nd of May was our school lunch hero day. Our school nutrition professionals prepare healthy meals for our students that power up our students for learning all while adhering to the strict nutritional standards and navigating food allergies and sharing smiles and laughs with our students. Our lunch ladies and men are very important. School lunch hero day is our chance to thank our school nutrition professionals for the difference that they make every day for a
018child who comes through our cafeteria. Thank you board members. How about a round of applause for all of those groups. Our next information and outreach item is recognition of the global affairs club. Superintendent Pel. Thank you, Chair Nathan. I want to invite the students and advisor. Um, uh, let's see, Chris Carter and Lindy Lindy Lang to come on up to take a seat at the table here. We You want to see? Yeah. Come on up. One more chair. One more chair. Of course, we can absolutely get one more chair. Oh, you got just grab a seat there as wherever it uh fits. So, we are attempting to recognize some type of student accomplishment at every board meeting and um we actually had a series of things just happen this spring that have allowed us to
019really populate the agenda this year. And this is one that I will say as somebody who was a global studies teacher and who used to be on the board of the organization that sponsored this, I was so excited to see Rochester uh doing so well in this competition. So, we are eager to hear about what you did, why you did it, um, and super proud of this accomplishment that you had. So, thank you again. Yeah. Uh, thank you, Dr. Pel and Rochester Public School Board for having us here today. We're very excited to to share a little bit about our experiences. Um, my name is Chris Carter. I'm a social studies teacher at Mayo and this is my first year um, being the adviser for the global affairs club. Uh broadly global affairs club is
020we try to provide a place for students to discuss politics, current events. Um we're kind of an afterchool sort of club that also has a competitive arm, if you will, uh which is the academic world quest. Um, academic world quest is a competition in uh world knowledge, current events and students study uh I I mean in some cases hundreds of hours to learn um everything possible that they can from the curriculum that we get that these questions might be about. Um we had 16 uh students from Mayo compete this year up in St. Paul. And um uh actually Mayo High School finished first, fourth, uh sixth, and eighth I believe out of the about 35 teams that competed. And uh we're looking at three quarters of our uh state champion team here. So um let
021me introduce the students. We've got Hannah Tupper, one of our captains here this year. Uh Emma Lang, whose uh mother Lindy, also school district employee and father also um went along on the trip. And Avita Hansen, we are missing Etelyn Crumb tonight, unfortunately. But um I just have to say that um before I turn it over to everybody else, we had a lot of wonderful financial support to make this happen. Um from the Mayo High School um booster club who graciously funded our uh bus to get up to St. Paul and uh Global Minnesota that other than well these these students had to pay essentially zero dollars out of pocket uh for the entirety of the experience. So, um, huge thanks to the Booster Club and to Global Minnesota for supporting such a wonderful organization.
022So, I'll pass it on to, uh, the team. If there's any points you'd like to address, um, yeah, I feel like we were very lucky. Um, we competed at state like Mr. Carter said, and there were a bunch of articles on different topics. So, we had things about critical minerals in Africa, foreign languages in the United States, um, like AI and the future of NATO. And I think we just have such a privilege to be able to learn these things. And I don't know, we did pretty good at state. We got fifth, which was really at nationals. At nationals, we got fifth. Um, which was really good. And also nationals, we just got a lot of opportunities. We got to see the UAE embassy, which was really cool. And got to speak to a Mexican
023ambassador. And it was a really good team building opportunity and just kind of I don't know I think it sparked a lot of our interests to kind of go into a field like that when we're older. Um major in something like international affairs or a foreign language or something like that. Yeah, I agree. I think as someone who's planning on majoring in international studies in college, it was really enlightening to be able to meet a lot of people in these fields, talk to them what their experiences are, um and see a lot about what this looks like up close. It was very we were very privileged to see this. Now a lot of people get to say they've seen the UAE embassy and spoken to some of those people. So that was definitely a great
024privilege and we're very thankful to Global Minnesota like Mr. Carter said for funding this because it wouldn't have been possible without them. We're also the only team like we're only this the only school in Rochester that has a team go to this competition like Century Jam. They don't have a team. Um so it's even more of like a great opportunity because we do have a team that can take us. Um, and like Avita was saying, we at least Avita and I, we were both going into like STEM majors and then we started kind of like really focusing on this club and it just kind of changed like everything. I don't know. I realized how much I don't really like chemistry. Um, better to find out now, right? Yeah. Um, but I don't know. It really
025showed how much we all trust each other as well because we were able to like hold each other accountable for studying for all these things and we all knew how much we wanted it like and how much we all wanted to do well in it. So it was a really good experience to be able to go with like my four or my three best friends on this trip as well. So um congratulations. What was what was one of your hardest questions that you had? Azita and I had this topic. It's on a non-traditional approach to foreign policy. And a lot of the questions we got asked at Nationals were very complex compared to what we were reading because um we knew so much about the topic, but it was probably one of our worst topics
026at nationals because of the way they like worded the questions. And um had this one question in like space and national security where it was it had like two different countries and one of them was like it was definitely a tongue twister. They gave us 50 seconds per question to be able to deliver an answer and all four of the options were long and it was definitely maybe the hardest part wasn't necessarily the information but just figuring out what the question was even asking. So I think that was definitely tricky. It was more of a speed game than anything. And I mean, trying to pick a question or two out of a hundred questions that we competed in. To pick the hardest is definitely really difficult because I mean I got home and my mom
027told me that those were some of the hardest things she's ever seen. And the fact that we got 74 of those right was um very impressive. So I think if anything, we're just so proud of how we did. Fantastic. And what would you say to any student who might hear about your success and be interested in taking this on? What's the what are your words of wisdom? Um, I would say study hard, especially for state, because I do think if you study for state, then you do have a good chance of going to nationals if you put in the work. And also find a team that you like the people because if you don't like the people, you won't be motivated. You want to find people who will hold you accountable and who will just
028make you want to win the thing. So, board members. Dr. Cook, um can you tell me some more about the curriculum? Like what's the reading list like or or maybe what what would you suggest that somebody who's interested in um foreign affairs and in the world um put in their reading list. So for the topics, they sent out a study guide to us that we got access to and it had there were 10 topics. Um, one of them was current events and one of them was this one called great decisions which was like a sponsored topic. So it's in this book full of different articles that you read and there they usually focus just on two of them. Um, so they were there was AI and national security and then there was NATO. Correct. Yes.
029Um, so those were the kind of two focus ones in great decisions. And then aside from those two, there's other topics like um, one of them was a focus. They have a focus country every year and this year it was Mexico. Um, and then there's they just focus on so many different topics and underneath there's like round descriptions, round sources. They give you like 10 articles or more for each topic and so you just kind of study through them, read them. We used we like quizzed oursel on all of them so we could like kind of imagine questions that could be asked. Um so it's not like you have to go digging for information. They give it all to you. So as long as you study it then it you can be really successful in
030it. Dr. Barlo and a question for the uh staff. Uh how was it that uh Mayo happened to uh either stumble upon this or uh develop an awareness as to the existence of this particular um academic world quest and our I you noted that the JM and Sentry currently are are not providing that. We sometimes talk about how while all uh RPS schools offer great options, uh the thing we strive to also accomplish is to ensure that uh students and all of our schools are uh if you will uh having similar access to uh successful programs such as this. And so I was I was kind of curious as to how it came into existence. Sure. So, as a as a club, I know that global affairs has been around for at least a decade
031at Mayo, uh potentially longer than that. So, and we had the uh longtime adviser recently retired, uh Chris Schmidtz, who was was leading that for many years. And uh the extent to which it its origins at at Mayo, um I guess to me remain a mystery. Oftentimes, student clubs are uh created by students. Um I've I typically have students propose maybe one or two clubs uh to me every year uh to advise and um well anyway last year with Mr. that's retiring. This was uh one that I was definitely going to take on. But um you know, this isn't something which is currently standardized uh across RPS, you know, student clubs. Uh there is some similarity in clubs that are out there um throughout the throughout the system. But um you know, it's it's based
032on either student interest or staff interest. So, I will say that um with my experience with this this year, I would be uh very much an advocate for expanding that program to the other high schools. So, so long as there's a staff member that's willing to take it on and a student a group of students that are interested in participation. So, which I would imagine that there would be at all three high schools. So, you know, it's just a matter of kind of find finding the time and place for it in the school. So thank you Director Workman. Was there a limit to the number of students on each team like a minimum and a maximum? Yeah. Well, so in the just global affairs club that would debate current events and and all of that,
033uh there was no limit with regards to that. So for the academic world quest component, which was all the competition side of things, um this year fortunately they doubled the amount that we could bring. So we brought 16 students, four teams of four. for and um previously it was two per school. So you can bring in students in the past. So we were able to double that this year which was wonderful. Dr. McLaclin, um just to follow up on those other questions, how um how many times has a Mayo team competed in the academic world class? Is that new this year or other years? Um no. So, um I guess I don't know how many times um that we have competed, but this is the third time that we have made nationals. Excellent. You absolutely.
034Hey, a quick one for the students. Don't overthink it. Who's your favorite world leader? 50 seconds. Current alive. Uh I'll give you history too if the current is a little too high. Okay. The good. Thank you. Excellent variation there. Um, we're very on the spot here, but Emma and I shared the topic for the future of NATO and our great decisions, and they talked very extensively about Jen Stolenberg, so I'll give him some credit right here. Okay, that's good. Um, do you want to I'm not sure. I think there's just so many for Emma to think. Yeah, there's so many. And I think it's so nuanced because I think most world leaders have done something wrong in their lives. But um that's good to understand. I don't know. We we me and Hannah isn't well
035kind of a world leader but we did um global like in Africa like critical minerals and there was a lady Petrono Vuea and she um was like an advocate against like the M23 that's going like the in Rwanda. So I thought that was really cool. That's great. Um, I can't say that I know that much about world leaders. I don't know. I'm going to just say like Abraham Lincoln. Okay. I like it. Go way back. I I I I will just say to my son's eternal uh gratitude, my wife refused to let me name him Winston. It would have been Winston Churchill for me. He's Adam instead. So, thank you very much. Congratulations. [Applause] Our next item is board member updates. Does any board member have updates either from committees or visits or others that
036they'd like to share? Director Marvin. Um, a number of us were able to attend the uh Rochester public schools pow held last Saturday and the focus of that is the uh graduating seniors who are indigenous. They receive a eagle feather and beautiful handmade quilt made just for them. Um, and then it's it's a celebration. There's food and there's music and there's dancing and vendors and it was a wonderful occasion. And I guess the thing that I was the most gratified about is when they had many of the native people doing traditional dances, they invited everybody to join them and three-year-olds and 83 year olds were on the gym floor doing the dances right along with them. It was just a wonderful community uh community celebration. Direct work. So I had the opportunity um to attend,
037certainly not as an orchestra director, but as a member of the audience, the Big Nine 91st annual music festival that was held at Mayo High School this past Friday. And I've been thinking about this ever since the Mayo High School orchestra performed about what deeper learning looks like. And their teacher was on maternity leave. She'd had a baby 10 days before the Big Nine Music Festival. So, she was not going to be able to be there to conduct. Uh, Mayo High School performed five different selections with five different student conductors and they were all amazing. They'd been really well prepared and the cohesiveness of that group was incredible. They were all working for the same thing. They were on the same team. But the highlight has to be the last one who um conducted. He
038conducted a piece called the Tinker Toy Box and it was a piece that he had composed and it was absolutely fabulous. I spoke with him for a couple minutes afterwards and I said, "Please tell me that you are considering, you know, pursuing music as a career." and he got this big grin on his face and he said, 'Oh, absolutely. Um, just remarkable young people that I was able to hear throughout the the the course of the part of the day that I was there. Uh, 13 schools are in the Big Nine conference. Now, um, 12 of them have been, orchestra, and choir, and those students performed for each other during the course of the school day, which is when I, um, heard Mayo High School and a few others. Um, the one school that doesn't
039have an orchestra program is Redwing and their program was cut about 20 years ago because of for budget reasons. It's never come back. They sold all their instruments. They don't have a program anymore. So, I think it's really important to um encourage the support of the community for our music and arts programs. I think they're very valuable for lots of deeper learning for kids and for a way for them to express their their own creativity and their own emotions and learn how to work together as a team. So, um, big bravo to all the students who who participated this last Friday. Mayo High School did not have school that day because there were like 2,000 students coming in. So, the the other students had the day off. So, a number of us. Do you want
040to talk about Century? Um, no. Go ahead. I had something else. Go ahead first. Okay. Um, I I just wanted to share something from the Rochester Public School Foundation. Uh, because it is teacher appreciation work, uh, teacher appreciation week now in the first week of May. Um, wanted to note for the community, I guess, that uh, Rochester Public School Foundation continues to offer honor a staff member um, fundraising option for itself. It's a great way to honor um, a teacher in RPS um, by making a contribution to the public school foundation, which will then go on to fund innovative projects in the district and also provide some recognition for a staff member or teacher that um, you'd like to honor in that way. That's all. Well, and a number of us participated in a skip,
041one of our monthly skip visits to Century High School and um their skip priorities involve deeper learning and MTSS and restorative practices. And we're going to be able to show a video in a minute that I think really uh well, we met one of the young ladies who's in the video and we were able to see the deeper learning in action. You'll get to see it in the video. Um But what I was struck by was the really intense focus on improving instruction and recognizing uh one of the comments that the principal made is uh 45 minute lectures don't work for 2025 students and teachers are really looking to figure out how to deliver this complex instruction in ways um that the students can uh benefit from. And one of the ways they're doing it
042very well is with deeper learning. So, let's watch the video. Let's hope it works. Looks like the little speaker icon is muted. Thank [Music] [Applause] you. Here at Century, our staff remember how to provide deeper learning experiences by stepping up to the mic. Our staff create lessons where students can master content, find their identity in lessons, and engage their creative juices. [Music] One of the main challenges in teaching today seems to be engagement and identity and creativity are powerful hooks. They pull kids into meaningful interaction with content and help move them closer to mastery. In working with the DL team this year, I have become a believer. I've seen that a purposeful blend of identity, creativity, and mastery results in richer, more authentic, stickier, deeper learning. I wo DL principles into two ninth grade units
043I piloted this year. In the first, students wrote memoirs based on two driving questions. What formative experiences shaped them into the people they are today? What are the puzzle pieces of their unique identities? On a totally different note, I am for the first time trying a podcast with my students. We are currently studying a serial production, The Good Whale. And then students will produce their own podcasts. They'll stamp the work with their own identities by picking their own topics. And they will experiment with creativity in designing cover art for their podcast sites and deciding how best to share their ideas and their voices. [Music] Hi, I'm Kimmy. I'm in Miss Kowalsski's geometry class. And what I did for my project was a fashion sketch combining both segments, bis sectors, and symmetry, translation, and reflection. Um,
044I really did like this project uh simply because I was able to show my interest in fashion. I really enjoy fashion. It's something that I think is a big part of my identity. In the symphonic band and symphonic wind courses, students participate in a small ensemble each year. They are responsible for selecting the members in their ensemble as well as their music, giving them a chance to express their identity as musicians. In the creative process of rehearsing and making musical decisions, students prepare for a musical performance at the end of the semester. Throughout the unit, students develop their independent musicianship skills as well as building skills that transfer to all types of learning and life experiences. I wanted to make sure to come in with a special education lens to show that all students can
045achieve a richer, more meaningful understanding of subjects. I wanted to make sure that I goals can be connected to real world applications where students no longer feel a stigma but learn to think, collaborate, problem solve that is impactful and meaningful. For example, the zoo project students were able to show mastery of area and perimeter while adding their identity and creativity of what it takes to build a zoo. [Music] So, in Mr. Dolls and Mrs. Ryan's class, we've learned about The Great Gatsby. We did a one pager on it, and I think I did good on the one pager. I've learned a lot from The Great Gatsby. Like, it doesn't matter if you're rich or poor or in between. [Music] What is something you remember learning this year that felt important or meaningful? I think it
046would be the gingerbread house, learning about area and perimeter. Okay. When you were doing that project, did any part of your learning help you see yourself in a new way? A little bit. Yeah. Um, I did learn how to make new friends like my friend in this [Music] classroom. Thank you, Ann. And thank you to the team at Sentry who put that video together. Um, I also have to give a shout out to the students in the TOPS program at Century who invited me to come and visit their TOPS room. Um, in addition to all of this, you know, understanding of how best to learn in the classroom, we know that school climate is really important. And uh the tops rooms not just at Sentry but our other high school are led by some amazing
047student leaders who have such empathy and understanding of their peers and are really trying to provide spaces and opportunities for their peers to uh have a place to go when they need support or understanding. And um I just they have it staffed every day all day. And so the fact that they take time out of their own learning to help their peers, I think um is a real testament to um what we can do and what we're doing to build good school climates in our schools. So thanks thanks to that team for letting me come in. It was great. Any other visits, meetings? Sure, Dr. Whitehorn. All right, y'all gonna have to bear with me just a minute today. Um so be patient with me. Talk to me nice talk to me kind. Give me
048a moment. So, this week was a very emotional week for uh the community of color. This week, uh we've had some highs and some lows. Um I would be remissed in not addressing some things um in the position in which I currently sit. Um and I just want to so I'm going start off with some good things. Uh so on the 2nd of May, uh RPS was had the privilege of hosting um Dr. Bernard Harris, who was the first black man to actually do a spacew walk. He also did all of his studying here at the School of Medicine here in Rochester, Minnesota. Um, he studied aerero medicine. I might have said that wrong. I don't this first astronaut I ever met, so I might have got some stuff wrong. Um, but it was very
049amazing. I did have the privilege of being able to see him speak to the students at both Gibbs and JM um, where he spoke to them both for an hour. The kids had amazing questions. Um, I really do think that it w it sparked something in some kids. I don't think that uh kids nowadays even think about being an astronaut anymore. So, he gave a very informative uh speech, gave the kids some really wonderful information. The kids were really excited um to have met him. He stayed for pictures. He wore his full um astronaut suit and he explained a lot of things. uh the younger kids, he wanted to know how they use the bathroom, and he explained it in detail. And now I know how astronauts use the bathroom. Was not on my bucket
050list, but I I know now. Um uh in addition to that, uh uh to get right into it, uh we had a incident this week in our community. Um and I apologize for my lack of speech today, but I'm trying to keep my words together and not get emotional. Um, so I did write things down, so bear with me. I just want everybody to know that I'm just not a board member here as as no one here is. Um, I'm a mother. Um, I'm a community member. I'm an activist. Um, I'm a trusted friend. I'm a confidant in this community. Um, this week our city unfortunately witnessed a very disturbing act that has been has gone viral. um a young black child who was no older than probably kindergarten um was called out of his
051name a very derogatory word the n-word. Um unfortunately I've thought this over quite a bit and there's really not a justification or an excuse for an adult at any point to speak to any child in that manner despite of race, ability, creed, sex. It's is completely um unacceptable. As a mother, as a grandmother, as a aunt, as a cousin, as a friend, I'm I'm very much outraged. Unfortunately, since that incident, the person who did this um has opened a crowdfunding source, and at the last time that I was able to stomach um to look at what was happening there, she had raised over $800,000 in support of that campaign. There's some very nasty, very inappropriate comments that even as an adult made me very uncomfortable to read. And I know that some of our children
052and some of the people of our community, some of our students have probably read some of these comments and seen some of these actions that have gone forth. I do feel a duty to speak out against this to say that Amen. When the safety and the humanity of our children is threatened, it could have been your child. It could have been your neighbor, could have been a kid that you knew. And it is very disheartening to me that we live in a community where any person Excuse me. Excuse me. Could remain silent or complicit to this kind of action. There is a fear that people who do these things like to ignite in people and people of color and our allies that make us our children don't feel comfortable going to the playground or walking
053into their school building. And that should not be happening. Through the last couple days, I've been asked over and over again, what can I do and how can I be a support? You can speak up. Silence is complicity. Silence is agreement. Silence is a choice. And I would hope that after today, people will take into thought what your silence is actually saying. It's not acceptable. It's not It's not right. This is not an issue of what I think or what I feel, but as a community, there needs to be clear definitions of what is right and what is wrong. And this was wrong. This was absolutely wrong. When people say they want to be an ally, be an ally and speak up. Speak your truth. To cover for someone who is involved in these activities,
054it's wrong. It's absolutely wrong. There's not a parent or a person in this space that would be okay with anybody speak any adult speaking to their child in that way. And there's a lot of parents that would be at arms right now. And I and I speak to the board. I speak to the community right now. There's not a single person that cannot say that they do not love their own child enough that they that this would not outrage them. But I just want to say this part and I want to keep it as high level as I can. For the people who do not speak up. We're no different than the cowards that are hiding behind users names and masks. You have to use your voice in these times. You have to be clear
055on where you stand at these times. it. I'm I'm I'm emotional about it because I It disturbs me that we're still having this conversation. It bothers me that we spent my husband's 50th birthday yesterday protesting and rallying and standing in support of a cause that unfortunately we still have to stand for. And I would hope that this is a call to action for some people tonight. You can do more and we should do more. I know that we have not we don't know what grade or age this little boy is, but he's a member of our community and he has friends and family that were affected in our community and it does directly impact our school system and our community. So, I I just wanted to get that piece off my chest and I just
056want everybody to understand their responsibility in using your voice in these matters. I want to also give a shout out to Gri Arts today um who allowed us to make signs in their arts center uh on yesterday. Um and because of her just opening her doors for signs for a for a protest and rally in support of a young man, she received death threats. Her business was targeted. It was so unnecessary. It was very very ugly. So, I don't know if this is the quorum or not, but please support that woman and her business as she really put all that she had on the line to support a cause and didn't get back a lot of love behind it. Um, I I I want to also say thank you to all of the supporters and
057all the allies that we have. I want to thank you very much for standing in this fight with those with all of us. Also, um, for those people that are interested in being involved with this, there will be a town hall on tomorrow evening sponsored by the NAACP and Barberhop Talks, um, we'll be having yet another discussion. And if you caught the sarcasm in it, that's fine because we are having yet another discussion. But I would hope that this would ignite positive action in people and you will we will stop making this a us versus them and understand this is a we problem. Discrimination is wrong. We all have our own free will, but some things are wrong. I'm not asking people to to change their entire lifestyle, but we do need to speak up
058when things are not right. Um and we can use the amplification of everybody's voices to see that there are charges brought. Um because in all honesty, do we want people like that educating our children or with our kids? We have to say something. We have to say something. I hope everybody can stand and agree with with you on that. And I'm sorry. Thank you, director. Thank you. I I think it it we we recognized a number of different u employee groups and I I think I want to thank all of our staff and our administrators who also wrapped themselves around our students this week in our schools um who might have been feeling the fear that Director Whitehorn spoke of. And um I speaking personally, I'm continue to be committed to making sure that what
059we've set up uh in our schools as places of safety and belonging for all of our students um is one that I'll be continued to be committed to. Um, and we have always said we're trying to set the good foundation, but the work is not done and we'll continue to do that going forward. Oh, and I didn't mention that uh executive directors Miss Mona and Miss Jackie and also thank you to uh Dr. Pel did also help with Well, they attended, but they also every it was a big a lot of us that made this happen for um Dr. Harris to be able to be there as well. So, a big hand applause to all of you all for helping make it happen and getting on board with my shenanigans. Appreciate you. Thank you. Right.
060Our next agenda item are is our consent agenda items 5.1 through 56. 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. Our next agenda item is a monitoring item. The fiscal year 26 budget development process update. This will provide information to support the board's consideration of the 2627 prep for action item at the June 3rd meeting and our action item on the budget on June 17th. Superintendent Cal. Thank you, Chair Nathan. I'd like to ask Andy Croxstead, our director of finance, to come on up and also John Carlson, our chief administrative officer. Um board members, we're going to add a
061bit of a a practice here to our presentations. Even though Andy, who leads this work directly, will be doing the presentation. Uh I said to members of the cabinet, you guys need to come down and sit there because then I don't have to call you over when um there's a question, but uh that'll be the case for other presentations as well. But I want to thank Andy for the leadership he's provided. I think the only uh point I'd like to make before Andy gives you an update on the development of the budget that you will approve uh about a month from now um is that I have never uh in 30 plus years of being involved in school district leadership uh been at a moment where events at both the state and federal level were
062so uncertain. And so we are bringing you our best projection of where our budget is going to be when we ask you to approve it uh in June of this year as you are required by law to do and as you are all committed to do. Um we are trying to stay as closely connected as we can to state level discussions and federal discussions. Um, but I think there's a significant chance that in the dark of night as they try and get a deal done at the legislature, we may find ourselves with a very different uh scenario, positive or negative, than the one we think we're having now. And for reasons we talked about earlier tonight, the federal level is anybody's guess. So, we are navigating very uh uncertain uh times. Uh but with that
063we want to give you an update on the work that we have done over the last six months since you uh passed your budget uh guidance for us which we've used to the development of the process that Andy's going to give you an overview of now. Thank you Dr. Patel Chair Nathan members of the board. I'm glad to be back here again to give you a brief update on uh where we are to date uh with development of next year's budget. I want to um step backwards though and uh maybe not backwards, but I want to just remind everyone of uh the balance budget model that was uh presented and approved as the basically the framework for how we went about developing the budget. uh specifically um focusing this first year on uh schools um
064the schools themselves and working directly with principles out of that work and as we began to dig into more of the um what was just what we referred to as district-wide services which was essentially everything that supported the operation of those sites. it became clear that we we needed to also create what what I call a fifth pillar or a fifth category in this case called central office that is going to be primarily those positions that are uh in most cases leadership positions. So cabinet for example, um superintendent of course, uh managers, directors, generally those that are leading functions within the organization, but it also includes support staff in positions in human resources and finance that support the ongoing operation of the district such as hiring uh individuals and uh paying those folks uh as
065we as we do in the employee services division of the finance. So we created the central office and in doing so uh as I move into this next slide, what that meant is we we we essentially took those cost centers that were uh originally part of the January 7th uh presentation and that work and we divided them then into more appropriate locations based on um the discussions that we had. We we had a lot of discussions about this. We we I mean uh John himself pro you know we we had a lot of discussion about should that position be here should that position be there should this function rely in uh district-wide services should it lie in central office so there is still work being done this is not final and we may and we
066likely will encounter other positions that we think oh that should be over here or over here. So this is still just a framework that we're trying now to follow as we finish our work, but there will continue to be some uh adjustments to this. So we took those cost centers that were developed as district-wide services and now divided them into two different um categories, both again the district-wide services. And here you'll see the new central office. I should remind you all that these are potential cost centers. We haven't landed on this. This will be something that will be fully implemented in our FY27 budget uh as we again focus more on central office district-wide services including special education, ML services, some of those very intricate components of our operation as we work to uh address
067how we budget for those uh services as well within our operation more in FY27. So here again is just a list. None of these cost centers are new on either one of these pages. They've just now been divided amongst those two different categories that we've developed. It's also important to notice that there will be some things some some services across multiple categories beyond just central office and districtwide services. I'll give you an example. In our um uh student nutrition services, we have uh a maintenance individual who who we deem district-wide be district-wide services because he is supporting multiple multiple facilities and the operations of uh SNS within those facilities. We uh categorize the individuals that work in the lunchrooms, the lunch um as we spoke about the lunch ladies and lunch gentlemen who uh prepare
068and serve the food, right? They are what we are deeming fixed school staffing. The decision is made at the central office about how many should be in each position or in each building and those positions are then allocated. And finally, we have then the leadership of the SNS team which is central office. So you'll see they do cross over and we will try to minimize that as much as possible but in some cases it's it's inescapable. So as we dig into the BBM implementation or balanced budget model imple implementation, it really started in full force in February as um uh cabinet member Peterson and uh Mr. Johnson from that uh office along with myself and principles we began to meet to develop their staffing plans for the next year. Afton partners also assisted us in
069this effort in providing their leadership and their guidance in both helping to determine the process. They led uh team meetings, open office hours, things of that nature. So, there was a a vast uh support system put in place to help principles navigate this first year through this new process. As I mentioned, phase one, of course, uh again focused on the sites. Phase two will be more district-wide. We obviously believed it was important then once that concluded and that took about 3 weeks once that work was done that we received some feedback from our principles in how that process uh uh played out. Clearly being something new, it's important that we receive that feedback. We also know that it's important that we adapt and and adjust to feedback. A couple of points, I won't read these,
070but a couple of uh points that jump off of this specifically for me. It's the It's the need um for perhaps some additional content in our guidance document about the rules, what positions are available to be f uh funded with certain um funding sources. We did what I believe to be enough, but I heard that that wasn't there was more that we could do. We certainly will. Another one is around uh just our general communications and sort of our our our schedule. uh we intend to back this entire process up pretty substantially uh for FY27 to align um collaboratively with the skip process. And so what that will allow the principles to have is more time. They'll have more time in preparing this. But because of uh the the approval that was received in January,
071we then had to develop the internal tools and processes which had started of course, but we then had to get that working. um we we heard that we needed to give principles more time and rightly so. So those are some of the adjustments that we know we're going to be making as we look to the next phase of this work. Now what did it yield? Um as we mentioned we've now uh created this fifth category and here is what I would call our preliminary. We're fairly close in these numbers. Um but uh the FTE count is uh fluctuating I would say daily sometimes a half a one up or down as as positions are added and some are are are removed and and that doesn't mean people are added or removed. It means just job
072titles or assignments may be uh adjusted. So make it clear it's not it doesn't mean people necessarily. Um the average cost the way that we developed the uh process was where was that principles would select those positions they wanted to fund through their flexible dollars using an average cost. Uh we're now in the phase of our budget work where we're now applying actual real salaries and and ensuring that our averages are hopefully pretty close to what we uh what we actually will put in the budget. And so uh I'll get probably I'll talk more about that as we get into the actual budget work later on in January. But average cost was used just for the process of developing those work plans for the sites. It's important um then that we we look at where
073these particular categories uh uh align in terms of the overall and as you can see between fixed school staffing and flexible school funding that is about 76 over 76% of the overall district staffing positions are put into um directly into supporting our students. uh that doesn't mean again that specialized well I should actually say specialized program should be added to that as well because that's going to be things such as CEK and PEK so it's actually the combination of those three it's really just central office and districtwide services that one could uh perhaps make an argument that those are are less involved on a day-to-day basis with students not exclusively but on a day-to-day basis and that is right around 12% right now these numbers are still being developed and finalized and this will be
074part of the uh final uh report that we do in June. Um where we landed right now uh in terms of our revenue, this is slightly revised from where we were um um in January when we presented the forecast. Uh really the only change is that we have some additional grant revenue that we're accounting for in our revenue. Um unfortunately this doesn't uh include any uh reductions as a uh related to the um news that we received last week. Uh and until we believe strongly or until Dr. Pel gives us the indication that that should be removed, it is still in here at this point. So none of those dollars have been removed from the revenue nor from the expenditure side of the budget at this particular time. So this is really just some additional
075state grant revenue that we um that we um missed in our first um goaround and then some additional pension contribution aid that we received from the state that was missed as well. So at the in the end we are uh estimating our revenue right now to be about $32 million in the general fund. That's how much money we anticipate uh earning uh and and therefore spending. And so as a balanced budget model that is the goal. Should also be noted this doesn't take into consideration any of the state potential modifications as a result of legislation. Uh I will just tell you there are some things that I think are likely to adjust. Not getting into details because we don't know those numbers but where the House plan and the Senate plans have some alignment. There
076may be some slight differences in their numbers. I am I am in my mind believing there will be some some um changes but to what extent is unknown at this time. Of course we're monitoring that closely. Um this is the general fund FTE and you can see that it's very close to where we approved the budget uh for this particular year. Uh this is actually as of today we are at 2397 point something I believe is ZFT. So again reductions and and um in some cases I know there was at least two positions that we found in this list that were duplicates. So that's the work that we're doing now as we reconcile and put final dollars to it. On the expenditure side, um again, um we fully expect to um recommend a balanced budget.
077One caveat of that might be uh some one-time expenditures that we deem appropriate that could be used from uh fund balance u and th those reserves. One of those being the Skyward replacement and upgrade. Uh we are going through a process right now where we are evaluating other uh solutions including Skyward itself as that tool is uh that we're using today for both our business and our student uh management um aspects of our operation is over 15 years old and has had not had has not been upgraded uh to its latest version. Um and so that is that work that we're doing. No decisions have been made on that but we anticipate that being a project that we would undertake probably next year and um we aren't we would be using would be our recommendation
078we use fund balance reserves to do that because it is a one-time is it a one-time upgrade. Uh, I do want to note that the non-personnel um did go up and and the reason that went up is because I we we were putting a few more things in here and I don't know that this is exactly accurate either. As I dug into the non-personnel, I did notice that we had a large amount of activities and athletics um budget in that that would probably a portion of that should be moved into salaries and benefits. So, uh, but the non-personnel here does include everything we identified as part of our balanced budget work that we did with Aptton. So, all of our non-personnel expenses, including, uh, utility costs, including insurance and benefit, not insurance and benefit, excuse
079me, um, liability insurance, transportation costs, supplies, materials, all of those non-people. That's what non-personnel is, including our contingency as well. Again, these I I would I would say don't get too hung up on these dollar amounts at this particular point because I do I do know that they're are shifting because I think there are some things again that were counted in non-personnel that should have been shifted up into employee salaries and benefits. But what I'm intending to show here is again a balanced budget. We expect our expenditures to equal what we bring in in revenue. just a little bit more detail to our general fund expenditures as it relates to um uh bringing in the balance budget categories for our contracted employees. So that detail just is a is pulled over from an earlier slide.
080But then as we add our other expenditures, you'll see that there's other employee pay that includes uh expenditures for substitute teachers for uh some of our building leadership work uh other uh other pay to employees. It could re uh include stipens for uh work that is perhaps paid for by a grant but is still an expenditure to us uh on on our books. That's what other employee pay. It's not tied to an employees annual contract. Activities and athletics, I've mentioned that before. Uh our non-personnel um so that non-personnel in on the previous includes activities and athletics. So we just rolled those things together. And then of course our contingency. Just a little bit more detail again to arrive at the same bottom line. We hope as we now begin that final uh uh final part
081of our work. And just a reminder of what we're doing uh as we move forward. Of course, we have tonight's work, but then we'll be back here on June 3rd with a prep for action where we anticipate bringing a lot more detail to you. Well, we will be bringing a lot more detail to you. Um, we hope that at that particular time the budget is fairly close, but we know as the legislation as the legislative session is wrapping up hopefully just a little bit before that or if it were to happen to perhaps go into um um extra session special session, excuse me, couldn't think of the word there for a moment. Uh if it goes into special session, we may have some additional work we need to do between the 30th and the 20th
082on that final budget. So, we try to incorporate as much of what we know at the time of the approval of the final budget as we can. Um, there may be some things that get missed that just have to be part of a revision later on. So, uh, that's what I have to share with you this evening. I will tell you that we're moving along pretty rapidly. Uh, our staffing um is um almost wrapped up. We're now moving into the non-personnel and tightening um up those dollars and ensuring we're uh again hopefully staying within uh budget. That's the goal. Dr. Marvin, this is and you alluded to the uncertainty that we may be facing with state and federal funding with the um timeline that you have set up here and with our building leadership doing
083so much work in their building to ensure that they have the staff that their students need. And now with the recision of the grant that we assumed and building principles assumed they had for this critical personnel for the next couple of years, does that change the the timeline at all in terms of when uh the board I mean we're set to approve budgets on June 20th. You see that getting Well, it really can't. We have to have a budget when we start the new year July 1. So yeah, uh, as I mentioned, we there may be some things that we just are that are just still uncertain at the time that we've approved the budget and we have to go back and make a revision that will come to the board during the year, which
084you do today. We have um we've done two budget revisions already for this fiscal year and we'll have another one upcoming. Uh, those generally have been reserved for things that are unseen or unknown. Many cases, new grants or new revenue sources that come in after the budget is prepared. But there is the possibility there could be reductions that are not part of our final budget as a result of uh either legislation or the legislature or perhaps federal uh decisions that um either are not certain enough to include or um aren't known at the time that we would produce the final budget for you to approve. So, um, yeah, we're I I guess my question is, will building leaders have the autonomy to change their minds and re uh allocate the funds that they have um
085before or after June 20th if other cuts happen? Um, yeah, thank you, Dr. Marvin. Um, the short answer is no. that the building leaders have built their budgets and should we need to in some utopian scenario allocate more money more likely allocate less we would be providing guidance centrally because we simply don't have the time to do the labor intensive school by school analysis because as Mr. just cross just mentioned we have to have a budget done by July 1 and so we will be more directive you know I'm a big believer in school level autonomy and decision-m but um when you have to turn around a revised budget in between the end of the legislative session and July 1, we will likely need to be making those recommendations to you. We'll certainly take into
086consideration feedback we get from building leaders, but probably those will be some adjustments we'll make at the central level. Okay, thank you Dr. Whitehorn. I could just not understand this is possible. Um but kind of to to kind of just get a little bit more information as to what um Dr. Marvin was saying. Um I know I understand that we have to have it by July the 1st and I also know that we have some very uncertain things happening um on higher level government that we have no control over. Um, but we are aware of what funding could be impacted even though we don't know if it will be impacted. So, is there any way because I guess my small mind says that it's a lot easier to add than it is to subtract. Is
087there any way to get a projection of what it would look like if if if it if it did, you know, I mean, like, is it possible to make it so we're not doing as much work? like like you said, it's harder to uh you know, they have to know what their staffing is. I guess my thought is that wouldn't it be a little better if we assume we may not have certain funds, you know, and then if we have it, great. We can increase as as opposed to having to go backwards and say we thought we were going to have it, we were praying that we were going to get it, you know, it didn't happen and now we have to, you know, go backwards. or is that just not a realistic way to
088budget? Am I making any sense here? Yeah. No, it's a I think it's a great point, uh, Dr. Whitehorn, that we are budgeting conservatively. And so we are not, um, hopeful of a windfall. And so I think essentially we're doing what you're suggesting. Um, that's why I say this utopian scenario in which we get more is unlikely. And we're not really planning on that. Now, the thing that's so hard it in uh state law, the legislature has to finish by 19th or 22nd. 19th 19th. So, we should have enough time to bring you a budget that reflects that. The big question is if they actually are at an impass and they have to go to a special session, in which case all bets are off and we're in the the uh uncharted territory of exactly
089how we might do that. Um but we are planning to be, you know, conservative for where we'll go. The thing that is so uncertain about a divided house and then a governor, you know, who is a third player is sometimes these decisions are made at 2 am in a meeting room where none of us are there and they the next morning they do what we call the runs where they do the analysis that figure out what happened to our dollars in achievement and integration aid or compensatory aid or the general fund and it's a done deal by that point. Um, I'm I think everyone uh who is at the policy level knows that's not how you're supposed to run a railroad, but it does seem that we're headed for that uh right now. So, I'm
090hoping that there are some very thoughtful behind closed doors discussions happening right now so that we do the legislature does end on time on May 19th. Um, but we will need to be uh ready to pivot for that. Dr. McClunk, um, I just want to comment, Mr. Cruxed that um as a member of the community budget committee, community budget advisory committee, um I just appreciate the clarity of this and I think back to a year ago how different this was and how much progress we've made in these revisions that it seems like every time I see it, it's revised and improved and uh more transparent and more clear for everyone who's looking at it. So I see it as a really good resource and in particular I think it puts a lot of context to
091it to see even though they're potential cost centers but to see what you mean when you say districtwide services from outside your work. I had no idea what you meant until I see this. Um but I think that's super helpful for us to understand what we're talking about more clearly but also seeing this as a resource if we get questions from the community. What does that mean? This is a really good guide for what it means. Um, and I just appreciate the the progress and the um investment in that change and um the value that this provides to the district in um us feeling confident that we understand what we're making the decisions about particularly when this is uh the balanced budget model is so different from what we've done before um that I think
092this is really um good information for us to have available to us if we need it. Thank you. And in the past um Mr. Mr. Carlson knows how fond I am of our budget book. Um, but one of my favorite charts are the uh FTEES by job title. Yes. So, when we do the budget book this year, can we get it by the categories in the balance budget model? Yes. So, that would be an added table that would then divide it exactly like that like like sort of like we've done here, but not we haven't done it by position type yet of obviously. So, that's wonderful. Thank you. And then sort of tied to that is you talked about how you divided up the um what was districtwide and now into districtwide and central. Did
093you make any moves with fixed fixed school staffing or flexible out of those categories? No, nothing those first three categories did not change. Okay. Uh we did I I will tell you that within the specialized programs we actually added a few positions that would have been in district-wide other. So essentially if it's a specialized program CEK PEK all of the positions within that program or all of the positions are identified as specialized program regardless of whether it's a teacher a maintenance person SNS whatever it might be. So those get kind of carved out in their own but no changes are made at all to flexible or fixed as any of the work uh that we've done. Anything else, board members? All right. Well, we look forward to getting the runs. Thank you. Our next agenda
094item is a prep for action approval of the 2026 2027 calendar. The board is scheduled to take action at the May 20th meeting. Superintendent Pel, thank you so much. And I want to um just say so that uh Mr. Bachan who's coming up does not feel singled out. Uh we just had a a little snafu with no timer set last time. So Carl, this is not being set because you need a timer and they don't. But you know when the timer's not on, I know I'm having an aneurysm over here. And so this is not personal, but thank you uh Miss Kramer. Um Mr. Bakan has been um our our goo calendar guru every year even though it's not strictly a human resource function. So I'm always glad for him taking on taking it on.
095I also want to thank our Rochester Education Association and Rochester Principles Association who have um as in the past helped us develop this proposal for your consideration. Carl, good evening board members. Um I'm here to present the 26 27 It's hard to believe we're talking that those years right now school calendar for your review. Um, it does, we're hearing loud and clear that it benefits many of our families to have this completed early to allow for it was to plan for vacation and other family events. I think we did it last year over the summer, so we're a little bit ahead of that this year. Uh, the proposed 26 20 27 calendar in front of you is very similar to recent calendars that we've proposed and and have run. It has been typical the last
096several years for the school to start the last week of August and finish in the first week of June, give or take a couple of days. Um, the background information highlights the back to school week, the first student days, the last student day, professional development as well as curriculum adjustment days. Um those are laid out there and our we have 173 student contact days and that's been the norm for the past several years. And as per the contract there are 192 teacher contract days, four holidays, two unpaid days during uh MEA break and four flexible conference days when teachers are not required to work because of the conference time they're putting in after school hours. With that, I'll take any questions you have. Um, I know that in listening to the state legislature, um, the
097issue of Labor Day being so late, um, in future years has come up, but we continue to be able to take advantage of our construction exemption to be able to start before Labor Day. And that is not the case for other districts. Correct. because of the size of the district, it um we easily meet that minimum dollar amount of construction each year without without probably even without a big project going on. Anything else, board members? All right, then this will come back. Oh, sorry. I I did just want to note one thing maybe especially because we're on the eve of a curriculum adjustment day tomorrow. um that every time that we talk about literacy and implementing new curriculum, um I hear from our professionals that those days are critical to implementing our um literacy strategy
098and uh um really valuable for what we're trying to do to um make Rochester public schools the best place to learn how to read. Um so I'm glad that we're continuing to do that. Um, I recognize that it's important and uh we'll enjoy having the kids at home tomorrow. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Carl. And our next item is another prepped for action item, mindsets, behaviors, and experiences for student success. And the board previously discussed this at our last study session and is scheduled to take action at the May 20th meeting. Superintendent Pel. Thank you. As you all can see, we have Will Ruffin the second, um, our executive director of equity and engagement, and Heather Hogan, who directs our school counseling and postsecondary readiness work, and Alex Aano, our lead counselor, joining us here.
099Um, as board members are aware, the idea of these mindsets, behaviors, and what we're now calling steps, previously known as experiences for success, is to articulate those competencies that we want kids to develop over time, both within and beyond the curriculum. We don't know all the ways that over the course of our next strategic plan, we will use this framework if you improve it, uh, if you approve it and maybe improve it. uh teachers will integrate it into their instruction. Uh chief academic officer Mona Perkins and her team will use it as we are selecting and updating curriculum. Our school counselors will use it as they are both conducting lessons and interacting individually. Our social workers uh will use it for the kind of mental health work we talked about. We want to make this
100an explicit set of mindsets and behaviors and steps to success after high school that we can integrate into our work. And so we're asking you at this meeting and then for full approval at the next meeting to put your seal of approval on it so that we can then begin what will I think be the very organic work of bringing this to life in our schools. So with that I'll turn it over to the team for an update on what's changed since you saw the last uh draft of this proposal. Thank you Dr. Pel and school board members for having us back to the table tonight to give you this update. Um like Dr. Pel said we have Alex Aano here with us presenting instead of Heather Woman and Alex is our lead counselor for
101the district. So jumping right in to have a little context to this conversation tonight. Remember this was born from the listening sessions of our strategic plan where it was loud and clear that the community wanted our students to have a plan for life after they graduated high school. We also have the famous building blocks or Lego blocks here where you can see building post-secary education and career pathways was always a part of the plan. Um we want our students to have a vision for life after high school like we explained but there's also a point where we want them to have the steps to realize those plans also part of the the overall big picture. So before you we have a proposal for schoolboard re uh resolution and this is for anyone listening or who
102may be new to the conversation to understand what we're asking of the board tonight. We're asking that the board adopt two frameworks going forward. The first framework is the mindsets and behaviors for student success like we mentioned back in March when we presented. Um and the second framework is actually 67 steps to success. So, thank you, Director Mclofflin, for catching uh because I'm so good at math. Error there. Good job. Oh my gosh, that was my fault, but I was a social studies teacher, so I can't count either. So, wow. So, adopting those two frameworks is what we're asking for you tonight. So, if you keep that in mind as we go through the updates for today. So, as part of our work uh refining the two frameworks, we received a lot of really good
103really good and important feedback. And uh here you can see that we've provided you just a summary uh of what our school community size strengths in those frameworks. Uh and just to highlight just briefly a couple you know one of the things that was appreciated for example was that the frameworks focused on uh strengths and skills needed for uh outside of the classroom outside of academics as well. For example social emotional and life skills uh as well as other real world skills uh to support a balanced whole child approach. So, we just wanted to highlight a couple of brief um strengths that our next next piece of feedback is regarding questions or concerns that people had as they look through the proposal. And some people still felt that it was still collegeheavy and they felt
104like the college path was still the default path. And then other paths such as the trades or military or people going directly to work was still under reppresented. Something else that stood out was um if you look at number two the implementation piece was do we have the human capacity to actually pull this off. I just want to remind people that this was the draft of the propo proposal. This was not the implementation plan which is which would be the next part of the phase here. And then number seven, I just want to point out too that there was a request for more experential learning. So such as internships, job shadowing, and volunteer work. Maybe could you hit the advance maybe just maybe our maybe our clicker's dying. Oh. probably just hit the screen. Um,
105one of the pieces of feedback that we asked for was how um our community, which included um students, staff, um community members, uh key partners, how they saw this uh both frameworks being used. And so you can see some of the suggested uses or ways that um that that feedback came back and um many of them were items that Dr. Pel um mentioned as far as how we as an organization will be able to use them. Um but it was also um a key piece of feedback was for the family component and a request for either toolkit or set of resources for families to be able to help support um students as they um move through our system. the um couple of big takeaways. Um so big takeaways uh for feedback um are overall um
106very positive but with an emphasis on needing uh a really strong implementation plan. um balance between that college readiness and alternative pathways and really making it feel relevant for students. Um so we really heard that multiple pathways piece of feedback. We heard that the last time we were here at the board. Um we've heard that from students, from staff, and from community members. Um so we did address that in our revision. Um our presentation last time really focused on documents and We want to show you a glimpse of the support for multiple pathways within our post-secary readiness curriculum. We want to make sure that all students have them have information to make decisions about what is best for them and then also help them understand that their path may uh their idea about their path
107may change over the years as they go through school. So, Alex is going to share a little bit of information about how we support multiple pathways. So, as you can see on the screen, um, and as Heather said, we do support multiple inclusive pathways within our curriculum. Um, in order to really, uh, open as many doors as possible. Uh and and to that end, we intentionally teach about these nine different pathways that you can see supported training or living after school, apprenticeship, military, uh directly to work, entrepreneurship in addition to the gap year down the bottom six there, and then the top three, the two-year college, four college. Um, and so in addition to intentionally teaching about each of those, there are some pathway specific steps um that a student might need to take to
108achieve a certain goal to achieve their goals. Um and just one of those I'll just mention briefly is for example to you know enlist in the military you have to go to the military entrance processing uh site and you know basic or for example if you start your own business register those pathway specific And as you can see from the examples there, we do uh this intentional education uh at multiple points in a student's K12 experience where we provide that information um both giving them information but al also asking them to self-reflect uh so that they and their caregivers can you know have all the information both kind of about what the options are as well as their own self-reflection to make the best choice that fits for them no matter what their pathway is.
109So based on all of the feedback that we received, we did do a number of revisions. One of the major revisions that we did was that we uh split them into two frameworks. The RPS mindsets and behaviors and then the uh RPS uh steps to student success after high school. feedback we received was that having the two together was um overload of information. People felt overwhelmed and it was much easier for them to digest if we have it separated into two. Um we clarified some of the language and the mindsets and behaviors um so that it was more actionoriented. Um and we did preview this with our student school board um and time. I know there was a question from the board about uh the language and whether or not it was accessible for students.
110Um our student school board um did not share that they had concerns in that area. But the other piece that goes along with that is um using uh those mindsets and behaviors as teaching tools and making sure that all of our students do understand the language um that is being used in that. Um and then with our experiences we did um adjust the language uh to be more inclusive of multiple pathways. Adjusted language to reflect flexibility for students. Um there was some uh concerns about young students getting locked into a major or a pathway. So we made sure that it shows students are reviewing their plan as they go through um their years and they're not locked in at an early age. Um and then we're also organizing it so it's clear which are college
111spec specific and which are universal steps. Um because we want to make sure um that students understand and families understand that it is not um gearing all students towards um college um but they have the flexibility to make a choice that's best for them. For example, 11th grade has 16 steps and only five of those are specific to college. questions. Wow. I think that may have been the most precise presentation ever. All year. Board members, any questions? Director Mccclaclin. Um, I have a couple. Um, Miss Hogan, we talked a little bit at the I'm forgetting the whole title, the community, um, curriculum advisory. The I can't remember the I. You can help me with that. um that there was some feedback in those groups about making this accessible for students and parents who perhaps receive
112special education services, IEPs, those kinds of things. And then it also dawned on me that I'm curious to make sure that this is going to be used in a similar way at the um middle school alternative learning center and the um secondary alternative learn learning center just to make sure all of our students have access to this wonderful information. Yes. and um Heather Wilman, myself and uh Nicole Miller are collaborating on um that exact thing and we have that as a summer project. Um will be involved in that as well so that we can make sure that we have um resources available for families um with students receive special education services. and our alternative learning centers are also involved in uh implementing this as well. Wonderful. Thank you, Director Mvin. Well, quickly, um you know,
113I really appreciate that you continue to revise and review and engage other people to to look at the work you're doing and really listen to what they're saying. Um, I was really impressed when you brought this to the high school student school board members and they said 66 steps. And are there 67? Where's the 67? There's no number here. I pointed that out. My bad. Oh, I knew it was you. Oh, okay. Thank you. So, do the math. 4 A and 4 B 67. Anyway, they looked at it and said, "Man, this is way too long. That's way too much." And then after they looked at it, they said, "This makes absolute sense." And it's it was I I think what they really liked was the specificity. Starting in kindergarten, you're going to start talking
114about different careers. So kids get that idea from the, you know, the first year that they're in school. Um when they said after looking at it, it made sense and it wasn't too much and it was easy to understand. Uh then in meeting with uh some middle school kids too and we talked about this a little bit, but they said they would really like for high school students to come and talk with them. They're they're all about having high school panels or individuals uh help them learn or help them, you know, with with their questions, especially as they think about how they want to get through high school in order to be ready to do the thing that they're passionate about. So, and I I know there are a lot of details to be worked
115out still, but I think this is really hopeful, really smart. And as I think I had said before, thing I like the most about this is that every single student will have multiple opportunities to see themselves doing something meaningful after high school. Nobody is going to feel like I don't belong or there's no path forward to me. And I think that's just critically important. Dr. White horn. I just have a comment I guess per se. So after seeing Dr. Harris, something he did say was was very interesting to me in all of his presentations that he decided to be an astronaut in seventh grade. And what he experienced was not the type of feedback you would think you would get, right? Because you want to be an astronaut, you want to go to NASA. And
116he said opposed to getting support, a lot of people also often told him how hard it was, how many barriers they would be. So, and I I guess I'm saying this to maybe counteray what we said before, but not really, but kind of a little bit. Um, well, because we, you know, there's this there's this uh thing of not locking a kid in, right? So, this kid is eight and a be astronaut. Give them the tools they need to be an astronaut, right? Um I mean I I get the point and and people grow through but um something he mentioned is so many people don't live their dream because as they get older they're told that this is the too big to accomplish and this takes this many steps. So a lot of times it's
117not because the kid doesn't want to be an astronaut anymore. Um as they get older they've just been given more what word am I looking for? Discouragement. Yeah. Discouragement. It's been dumbed down. it starts to look unobtainable, you know. Um, and he talked about how he, because he's older gentlemen, how he had to write a letter to NASA and get back what he needed and how he got very little support on all the checklist. I didn't even know you had to be like a doctor. I mean, you got to do a lot to be an astronaut. You just can't sign up like the application. Um, I would never be eligible. You got to be a certain height. I mean, it's crazy stuff. But um but I just say that because I would hope that there
118is some you know I know that kids change but I wouldn't want kids just completely giving up you know on a dream because as they begin to look into it it begins to look unattainable. So um like to one of the concerns that mental health support and I know it's a hot topic right now but I just hope that there is some support and encouragement that if you because a lot of people end up going back to their original dreams at some point right either in retirement or whatever they finally want to be you know an actor you know they and they just do it. So I just hope that there is a a component of this plan that doesn't um discourage the dreams, right? So even though it may seem, you know, I want
119to be this Hollywood actress, I think there should be some and I don't know, it's probably written in there somewhere, but that's the comment I wanted to make because that was very powerful that they are accomplishable, you know, even even things that seem very far out. So I would hope that we keep a little of that in mind. So lock them in but not lock them in. But, you know, it's good to be reminded that you um I don't I know I know this is probably an implementation piece, but maybe also a uh setting expectations on the part of the board when we look at how well we're doing with all these. Does Zello or some other piece let us know how how the uh kids are progressing through these 67 steps so we know
120are we like are we missing one consistently? Is it really hard to get them to to finish this? Can you talk a little bit about that? Yes. um Zello does um allow for us to track that and actually Alex and I were on call today with um them and an update that we'll have for next year is we'll be able to have all 67 steps in Zel and we can track how we are doing with those. Many of them are already embedded in there component of it where we can add in And what about the mindsets and the behaviors? How do you anticipate someone knowing a student, for example, knowing that they've they've kind of worked their way through those? Well, I think that self-reflection piece will be a big component of that, but I
121think broader that really is going to come in our implementation piece and working with the different departments that are going to help support this work. Um, that will be a part of that. Director Barlo. And so, um, it's great to set an expectation. And so, I'm curious though, we're probably are you envisioning implementation? Uh, one could we anticipate potentially seeing results not just in terms of are the students meeting 67 steps but uh uh are you anticipating uh when you would be able to provide back to the board a assessment of how well uh and I know it's part of the plan uh and and maybe it isn't fair to ask you when it's part of a larger plan. Uh but I'm bottom line I'm I'm uh excited to anticipate uh the the results. Uh
122I have currently uh seven grandchildren which are part of RPS and and probably less about your presentation I will see evidence in their lives. So I'll I'll looking forward to that. Sure. Um thank you Dr. Bravo, I think I probably I should take a crack at that briefly. As you know, the uh performance measures that you are about to vote on uh in the or that you will be Yeah, it's vote. It's action today be voting on for the school improvement process include enrollment in post-secary education, career and technical four-year within 16 months after high school. So, that is really the northstar measure. And we also have in our new system that you'll be voting on shortly, pro progress indicators. A powerful progress indicator of progress toward that goal will be what Heather and Alex
123were just talking about in response to Chair Nathan's question, the percentage of kids who are completing these steps. And so, and we'll have Dr. Ruck looking at statistical correlations between which steps are most predictive of getting into that I enrolled. So that measurement strategy, I think parts of it will be in place, parts of it will be forthcoming. I think in terms of the implementation strategy of how we're actually going to increase kids readiness to realize their dreams after high school, uh I have no doubt that will be at the heart of our next strategic plan and that will really be a guiding theme of everything that we do, which we will begin development of in the fall. And I think this is another implementation piece, but I think about it because I know you
124had a Zello uh webinar video uh Zoom call where parents could learn about Zello. And I know one of the things that I've appreciated about us implementing Zello is that it does give that link to parents to be able to link to the students progress. Um, is there any are we going to have any way to measure how well our parents are accessing or using Zello to support their students? Yeah, we do currently have um invitations, you know, out to families and family engagement strategy that allows them to uh click in and see all their students activities and data. Um, and then we can see their engagement and the numbers there as well. Great. Because I think that speaks to what Director Whitehorn said about, you know, kind of breaking down those barriers. The more
125support we can give our students and achieving their dreams, the better. I think if I'm I know we're trying to move on, Chern, I'll just say I while I agree Zello is a great tool, I actually hope that what you are being asked to consider tonight and then vote on um replaces the term using Zello because Zello is a software platform. And so if you are a teacher out there with 150 kids and you have all of these things and someone says, "Are you integrating Zello into your lessons?" That's really a means as opposed to are you developing the mindsets, the behaviors, the steps. Zello becomes a tool for the framework here because if we're really going to take it to the next level, right now Zello has kind of caught on and people keep
126referring to it as Zello partly because it's such a weird name. Um I actually kind of tense up a little every time because I know this work will not become transformative if we see it as a software platform. Um because some of the most powerful work that I know for instance Alex and his counselors colleagues of school counselors are doing is also conversational. It's leading a lesson in the class. It's not necessarily Zello. So yes, but I'm hoping a year from now we'll talk about the mindsets, behaviors, and steps. Um, and Zello is one way we're doing it to get there. Great. Yes, for sure. And I appreciate that, but I also look at it from the parent perspective. Like I look at it like we're building a house by building a kid. And if
127we don't have a tool like that, we need that tool in order to get started and to help with the framework so that families and students know how to get on that the path of they want to choose the path and get on the path they want to be on as part of the building blocks. Well, thank you for your work and continued revision and next time it's a vote. Thank you. Thank you. Our last for action item are the policy committee recommendations from the April 30th policy committee meeting. These are the recommendations that the policy committee has proposed to the board and this is the first of two prep for action briefings before the policies will be on the consent agenda on June 3rd. Uh, Director Workman, do you want to begin the review
128of the policies and procedures? Or I could or director Marvin Director Marvin will. Thank you. Um, policy 560 current uh, previously called homeless highly mobile students is meant to ensure as is used to ensure that children and youth who are experiencing holiness, homelessness, ouch, receive the same educational opportunities as other students who are not homeless. and also to ensure that the district is in compliance with McKenna Vento Homeless Assistance Act and applicable Minnesota law. Um the only change to this and this is an RPSonly uh policy is that we are renaming it students experiencing um homelessness policy uh 701 establishment and adoption of the school district budget. Uh this policy establishes line uh lines of authority and procedures for the establishment of the school district's revenue and expenditure budgets. Uh there are some MSBA policy
129uh model policy changes and then uh 701.01 which is modification of school district budget um which uh includes the procedures for modifying a school district's adopted revenue and expenditure budgets. Um because we're on a three-year cycle, we've reviewed this but recommended no change. Policy 701 uh.1R is an RPSonly policy. So uh there were no changes from MSBA on this. Uh changes were suggested by Rochester public schools to address staff titles. The purpose of policy 701.1R, purchases of goods and services, to ensure quality, consistency, and fiscal responsibility in the purchases of goods and services for the school district in accordance with Minnesota statutes. Then there is a procedure that's attached to 70 that's to this policy that's 701.1R. There was no change to the flowchart flowchart, but the manuals were updated to reflect policy and current
130RPS practice. Policy 704 is the development and maintenance of an inventory of fixed assets and a fixed asset accounting system. The changes in this draft reflect changes in MSBA model policy. And this policy provides for the development and maintenance of an inventory of the fixed assets of the school district and the establishment and maintenance of a fixed asset accounting system. Procedure 704A is the uh procedure that goes along with this policy. Um there were changes made um to reflect uh dollar values that um RPS wanted to use um as updates and there were also changes to RPS staff titles and this outlines the process for maintaining the inventory of fixed assets and technology equipment of the school district. Policy 721 is the uniform grant guidance policy regarding federal revenue sources and this had changes from
131MSBA model policy and the purpose is to ensure compliance with the requirements of the federal uniform grant guidance regulations by establishing uniform administrative requirements cost principles and audit requirements for federal grant awards. Oh, we're on 805. Sorry, I was hung up on the UGG thing. Um, different story. Uh, this is the waste reduction and recycling policy which establishes a resource recovery program to promote the reduction of waste, the separation and recovery of recyclable and reusable commodities, the procurement of recyclable commodities and commodities containing recycled materials. the disposition of waste materials and surplus property and the establishment of a program of education to develop an awareness of environmentally sound waste management. Uh there are corrections uh to match the MSBA model policy format. Policy 821.1R naming of sites, facilities, and room and rooms is a new
132uh RPS only policy to address how to name district sites, facilities or locations within district facilities. So the purpose of this policy is to provide the guidelines for the naming of new or existing school district facilities. and its companion is procedure 821.1RA um which simply accompanies that policy. Policy 905 is advertising and sponsorships and the purpose of this policy is to provide guidelines for the advert advertising or promoting of products or services. There were no MSBA model policy changes, but we um there were some changes just for clarification and alignment with the current MSBA model policy. And then procedure 905A is the procedure um that accompanies 905 updated to clarify the use of funds and formatting of the form that is available in this procedure. Board members, any questions on this set of financial and
133administrative policies? All right, we'll revisit this at the next meeting. Our next item is an action item, school resource officers contract. I'll read the resolution and then we can move to discussion. Be it resolved that the school board of independent school district 535 does hereby approve the school resource officer services agreement from July 1st 2025 through June 30th 2027 at a total cost of $1,148,430. Second. That was that was a motion. I'll move approval. Second. Thank you. It has been moved and seconded. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor of the resolution say I. I. All opposed. The resolution has been approved. Our next action item is performance measures and the skip 2.0 process. Again, I'll read the resolution. I believe the superintendent has some information and then we can have some
134discussion. Be it resolved that the RPS school board directs the superintendent to adopt a new continuous improvement process that will guide the work of all RPS schools starting with the 202627 school year that includes the elements listed in the document entitled superintendent's recommendation for skip 2.0 revised on Tuesday, April 29th, 2025. Move approval. It has been moved and seconded. Superintendent Pico. Thank you, Chair Nathan. I'll be very brief. The I want to thank the board for the very very substantive feedback that you gave um on this proposal during our last meeting. It has significantly strengthened it and I have put bullets on that highlight the point. I want to just highlight in particular since I know the discussion about parents and caregivers and their involvement in skip has been a subject of uh comments to
135the board and discussion. Uh a couple of particular changes though there are others. Um, a timeline for seeking feedback from parents and caregivers on the skip has been added to ensure that parents and caregivers have an authentic opportunity to learn about and influence the skip before it is approved by the skip team. Uh, the revised uh, recommendation also requires that uh, I approve each school's plan for authentic parent and caregiver engagement in their school skip prior to the development of uh, the skip that that year. So, two of a number of ways to try and enhance that parent and caregiver caregiver involvement. And as I've said repeatedly, I will be encouraging uh schools to also add parents and caregivers to their skip teams, but I am not at the point yet where I think uh
136we should require that. And so that is not included there. Though I could envision us once we have some experience with that uh potentially moving in a different direction in that area in the future. But I really thank the board for putting some teeth behind the parent and caregiver uh aspects of skip development that was not reflected in the last draft. Board members, any questions, comments, reflections? Um all right, hearing none. All those in favor of the resolution say I. I. All those opposed, the resolution has been approved. Our next action item is approval of start times for 202526. Be it resolved that the school board of independent school district 535 does hereby approve the start and end times for the 2025 2026 school year as follows. Bamber Valley, Churchill, Elton Hills, Fwell, Gibbs, Hoover,
137Jefferson, Overland, and Sunset Terry Sunset Terrace elementary schools. 7:55 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. Bishop, Franklin, Gage, Lincoln, Longfellow, Pinewood, Riverside Central, and Washington elementary schools, 7:55 a.m. to 2:10 p.m. Dakota, John Adams, Kellogg, and Willow Creek Middle Schools, 8:35 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. Century, John Marshall, and Mayo High Schools, 8:50 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Phoenix Academy, Rochester Academy for Independent Living, and Middle School Alternative Learning Center, 8:20 a.m. to 2:20 p.m. High School Alternative Learning Center, 8:50 a.m. to 3:05 p.m. Preschool morning programs, 8:15 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. and preschool afternoon programs, 12:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. Move approval. Second. It has been moved and seconded. Any um questions, comments, or additional information needed? Director Marvin, quick question for um the alternative learning center 8:20 to 220. How about the evening classes? That's the middle
138school one. The one you just Oh, but it's still the same question. Are you talking about school? We anticipate no change in middle school times. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I I I should just very briefly say uh madam chair that um as you know there was a proposal for somewhat more extensive change that I pres shared with you last time. We are not recommending that um because we got some feedback that it was uh there were some issues with it. So I think that we are uh essentially uh sticking with the status quo. Director Workman. Yeah. I'd just like to express my appreciation to the superintendent and the board um that when information that is received that improves on what we've already had a discussion about, we jump right into it. So, it's not a
139question of flip-flopping on anything, but saying, "Hey, that was a great idea, something we didn't consider. Let's add it." So, thank you to my colleagues on the board and the super director. I kind of play the devil's advocate sometimes in my thinking though is that it seemed like some of the impetus for the earlier recommended change was things about transportation. Do we think we're going to be able to accomplish this without having to change it again? Uh well invite uh John to comment there. The short answer is yes. And just to be really clear about why we had that change, Director Mclofflin, we got worried about some uh contract hours for teachers in certain schools, student contact hours tied to the contract. There are some schools where kids eat in lunchrooms because they don't have
140access in the morning for instance. And so we decided to just be really um safe on that issue and there were a couple others. But we do think the transportation uh uh system is uh going to work with this time as well. Yeah, by and large it's going to work. It works really well when the weather is nice like right now. Uh it can get backed up a couple minutes extra as I talked about last time on those winter days and high traffic days and construction days. And so, you know, that was part of the the recommendation, but we think overall the majority of days are going to run on time. All right. Hearing no other comments, all those in favor of the resolution say I. I. Opposed. The resolution has been approved. Item 9.1
141is our updated um ABCD and the current version of the whole year of ABCD is available in the agenda item and upcoming agenda items are being displayed on the slide. At our May 13th study session, we'll have a focus topic on enrollment projection. At our May 20th regular meeting, we will have a monitoring item which is our annual presentation from project search. We will have um action items on the school calendar proposal, proposal of the sale and issuance of general obligation facilities maintenance bonds and sale and issuance of full-term certificates of participation series. You'll remember that from a few weeks ago. We had a presentation that those were going to be um going for sale. And we'll do the action item on mindsets, behaviors, and experiences for student success. And just a reminder, these are
142all draft agenda items and agenda items can be added up through the meeting time. Um any agenda items board members would like to raise for consideration at a future meeting agenda? Hearing none. Um we have a study um all upcoming meetings start at 5:30. Our study session on May 13th, a regular meeting on May 20th, a regular meeting on June 3rd, and a study session on June 10th. And hearing no other business, this meeting is adjourned at 7:36 p.m.