2024_01_22 SFAS School Board Meeting

001yes okay good uh good evening folks as me the order please stand for the pledge I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation go indivis andice all thank you folks for coming in tonight uh let's take a look the agenda we have follow the order adoption of the agenda may I have a motion to adopt the agenda thank you Jill is there a second any second thank you very much any discussion on the adoption if not all say I roll call thank you very much all right now again tonight we have Miss Pam is home she's listening and watching with us so again tonight we'll do the roll call vote for every action item so that we have on record because

002Pam's out the area also I want to follow up from our last meeting we had so much going on our last meeting I failed to say to our board thank you for your support to be your chair for the next 12 months uh we have a lot to do here I don't have all the answers again if you have questions and answers from the board you need help or guidance or whatever please give me a call the superintendent I don't have all the answers I'm here to help out the board as much as we can so please give me a call if you have any questions out there my goal this year again Schoolboard meetings let's try to keep them at a two-hour meeting for our Schoolboard meetings when you're speaking up bring all your

003thoughts as much together as you can come back a second time with your thoughts and ideas but just's take a look and keep our Schoolboard regular meeting the two-hour time frame as much as possible I we talked about that down msba the other day with some other uh chairs they all stress themselves to try and stay within two-hour limit uh new ideas such as you see in the agenda here from director Nate we have our mission statement is listed on our our our agenda and that will be there each and every time to remind our board members and the public who has the agenda why are we here what are we doing for our students so please look at the agenda and go with that uh tonight we do have a lot of people speaking

004for those who are here speaking about the uh book Banning for those who don't know it tonight on Section number six 6.5 action item we'll be talking about the policy procedure for book Banning this came down from Minnesota Schoolboard Association it came down through all the attorneys we now have a policy here it was approved tonight you have you can see this on online you'll see what the proc will be should there be a book that someone wishes to band from one of our media centers just be aware we will be talking more about this tonight when it comes up number six 6.5 if you're looking for information with that we'll get started yes question just just a comment I would caution of using the word ban we're not Banning books we're looking at age

005appropriate books and so we're not I don't believe I think I believe Banning is not the right the right word we should be using just have cards here they're all talking about banning books that's why I use that terminology for tonight as far as I know that we're not Banning nationally we're looking at having age books for our correct and we'll be working on that all right well let's get started uh Mr Humphrey you're up first Mr Humphrey can we take can we take the roll call for agenda we do that no we everybody got get talking to much that's why I ask for help roll call to accept the agenda thank you Mr Nate hi manette hi Rob hi Amy Jill hi Pam I thank you and Mike yes 70 to adopt the agenda

006thank you very much did I get Talking Too Much I get trouble all right Mr Nate where or where you at thank you are we I'm sorry are we two minutes I'm keeping two minutes okay thank you we all have two minutes to speak tonight 30 second card will be put up at the uh 90 second Mark at 30 seconds more if you continue talking I'll say thank you for speaking please s so yeah two minutes tonight thank you School Board thanks chair thank superintendent hey Pam how are you kind of recking this Orwell thing for me the Telles screen um for uh employees customers uh I'm here to talk about the importance of a well compensated employee to a company I'm a small business owner about 15 years ago I was working with a

007guy that I worked with a lot his name is George uh rob you worked with them andette you worked with them on different projects that we've uh valued and uh uh what we found was whenever his boss would show up on a job and be like are you done yet or can't you go any faster and stuff like this and he had no benefits and he had uh you know kind of what I obviously was a a good pay but it turned out uh when he came to work for my company uh we almost doubled his salary we gave him benefits and this makes it so he doesn't want to look elsewhere uh he feels well compensated for his job he's driving very expensive equipment for me he's meeting my customers face to face he

008is uh the face of our company thank God and um he also uh is happy in what he's doing so he's not looking else um he knows if he gets sick he has Health Care he knows if he um needs to pay for something he has money that is available to him because of him being compensated I know he will show up I know he always will put his best foot forward and I know that he um will be the best he can be for our company and I can trust him that comes to a huge head um because in my business we're dealing with customers uh face to face so not unlike what we got here um I'm very concerned that you know we talk about fund balance and I was here back when

009we were bouncing around the bottom and then you know we made promises of like okay hold on for 5% we were talking about uh um some shared Equity or an investment which I think may be Revisited if you don't if you end up not having enough uh money that for me that's for you okay done more thanks for coming in j I do homework next up is uh Stephanie Stephanie and also when our speakers speak tonight I do ask people to be considerate to all of our speakers everyone has the right to come in here and speak their words tonight so please respect all of our speakers hi thank you um I'm Stephanie shman I'm a third grade teacher at SFP and this is my 26th year so I got my teaching degree back in

010and my first year out of college um I lived down in Chanhassen I subed in wetta Chas and Mana school districts those are three large school districts I didn't sub every day large districts they had so many Subs um so when I started here back in uh 98 when I applied there was over aund applicants for one Elementary position sometimes it's 150 I remember applying like crazy in other places over 200 applicants for an elementary position today my principal said that we're lucky to get 20 applicants some positions remain unfilled we can't get subs this leaves teachers covering workloads um to those unfilled positions we rarely have Subs available on a daily basis which leads to cancellations and specials and kids who are supposed to get read intervention they don't get um we are currently

011in a buyer Market there are so many open positions and so few teachers um they have a people coming into the position have a lot more choice of where they're going to go what district is going to offer me what you know I can have so I would plead for you to let's make St Francis a place where a teacher will come and where they will see thank you je next up Phil Thompson Phil B Thompson here I live in the district um I currently have five children for school raised children so um I put down on my request talk about the document 6065 um I see there's a lot of teachers here and U I also want to let them know too that yeah I would like to see them get more money too

012to have the funds and be able to do that um my concern was about books that can enter into the library based on this new document seems like it's fairly easy to get them in the library but very difficult to get them out and to get them to be removed and the process for that seemed to be very difficult to do and it seems like it doesn't have much restrictions for the type of content that is involved in a book that's in there there's currently some books in the library that would pass this document and I thought about reading some of those pages of that book but I don't know if that's it would be not even appropriate for this committee to hear that books that are currently in the middle school and in the

013high school library that should not be in there in the process to get that out there seems very difficult um what I would like to see is to uh consider the this document that is a very difficult to get out and I don't think it's a very good document to do that we at myself as a current resident here would like to see not only one teachers get more paid for referend the passor that get paid get paid more but also I would like to see the trust that we can have in a school board that would have books that would be appropriate and that would um give them lifelong skills and not skills thank [Music] you also as our speakers speak tonight uh please understand that we don't have communications back with the speaker

014we take your information we don't want to try and get in discussion with each speaker we may not have all the information yet if someone puts out misinformation completely falsified information myself or the superintendent we will make comment if someone puts out false information as you speak tonight next up will be Ellen Hall Ellen my name is alen Hall I currently have one student in Cedar Creek he's only a third grader um but I have two more children coming up in the district so I'm interested to see uh teachers get paid and understanding that when teachers are paid they're happy um and also it increases home values in districts things everything gets but continues to get better so let's think about those things as we move forward I I want to Echo a lot of

015the words Phil said um reading the same book understanding the same process my biggest thing is you know I agree with Phil on a lot of those things that what's coming in what's going out but I believe that education doesn't only exist in the classroom it's a conversation that parents have with teachers it's a conversation that we have with our students our children as they're going into the classroom and I think if if you're going to put those restrictions on children I think there needs to be a better insight into what my child if I'm a middle school age child or what my kid is checking out of that school out of the school in the library to date I don't see anything that I get to see oversight into what my child is checking

016out now the answer to your question is should I be talking to them yes however we all have middle school children we all understand middle school children they don't always want to give up that information so if you're adopting things of this nature just remember I believe that this this education needs to be brought back to these parents whether that's on the infinite campus or whatever that is that is reach or getting the information back out to parents so they know what is coming out or what their their student is checking out so again I thank you for your time thank you sir next up is uh Melinda Belinda there she is thank you um my name is Melinda I'm a member of the community in bethl um I wasn't actually aware that that policy

017was not like an agenda item today so um I would just came here because I had heard that there was uh going to be some discussion about removing um what I had heard 79 books from the school district for inappropriate contact so I'm here to proactively Advocate against any sort of a book ban and yes the are book fans um I don't know which books are on their list obviously um but so I won't speak till the mayit of specific titles but I really don't have to um this is just one effort in a wave of censorship that has been ramping up in the last few years and we must not allow it to succeed here because the first amendment prevents the government and by extension our public schools from interfering with or restricting speech

018just because they disagree with its Viewpoint and that is what most if not all book fans come down to parents and politicians trying to remove books that whole you they disagree with the majority of books that are challenged are by offers of color or by queer authors proponents of fans will couch their arguments and concerns the children's safety but this is disingenuous truly they just don't want to think about how there are other people who have Liv experiences that make them personally uncomfortable but students have a right to read the books they choose without this interference and parents should be able to put their trust in the book selection processes at both school and public libraries unfortunately that trust has been broken by rightwing media and politicians trying to push a fear-mongering campaign we as

019adults must learn how the to know the difference between discomfort and harm and how to sit with experiences that make us uncomfortable because these books are vital for showing students the full range of human society we cannot suppress the voices of black brown indigenous queer and disabled people just because one political party has decided that those people should not exist publicly reading about the experiences of people unlike oneself is a huge step in teaching kids to be compassionate and empathetic okaya thank you much thank you next up will be Ken [Music] Ken hi I'm pen PR um I'm a mother of three registered I 15 but full disclosure on the hes School bom um I'm here because my kids are friends with kids in the community and they're peers and the conversations they have and

020such obviously affect our family I'm going to try to talk fast I educated myself and I read the policy Jill sent out on Facebook thank you Jill and I also o read three of the books that were on the the band list that we're calling it but really it's just kind of restricted because of children being minors you know the state of Minnesota actually has harmful materials dissemination display of minors you know is prohibited by law but it's not being forced at the school so that's kind of the big deal here um so I read tricks out of the darkness and sold um the books were full of subject matter that I can't say in front of this little one um but that's the kind of reason why I want to talk is because the

021book policy I applaud you for coming up with a policy however it doesn't have substance and it's very subjective it's very open anything can pretty much get in and it doesn't restrict anything so I would urge you all and I will leave this with you but um to look at things like um the type of things like um um the the the I can't say the words because there's a kid here um there's a Content rating system that could be used as criteria to actually look at these things and make sure that these books are looked at and we can say oh everyone should have access to all these books not at school it doesn't need to be accessible because it does actually harm children and their mental health and I'm not trying to be

022rude and I'm not trying to be um you know not helpful in any way but you know they can go to the library if their parents are like yeah I want you to read about this situation where there's you know um children and adults getting together doing their fun activities that we don't like but there's books on this list that include that stuff that I can't say out loud um so anyway I just really would like you all to look at that and don't vote on the policy tonight because not to be mean I'm not trying to be rude it's just not there's not enough um rating system in there to actually ban anything well thank you for thank you guys very much and I know you really want my print out so I L

023it you have to have enough for one for the book over here how many copics do you have I have eight is that enough thank you whenever you bring a paper to pass out to us always have to have an extra one that goes in the public book so everybody has access to see what someone brought to us always make sure we have enough copies uh next up Ryan's here Ryan [Music] in the past I shared with you the idea our fund balance has grown over 2 million per year over six years I was working through some data and found information that I believe is important to share with you in the list in front of you details similar districts that have been used to compare wages and funding impacts while our Union negotiates I've

024gathered three funding numbers general fund expenditures unrestricted general fund balance and general fund balance is a percentage of expense two of The Columns have a rank data set and uh note on the left districts R currently have with little r next to them currently have an active referendum general fund expenditures are not really Apples to Apples it's a number that greatly is greatly influenced by District size St count and other funding sources some say the same about the unreserved fund BS not comparable to try and make them comparable we use the combination of the two numbers general fund balance as a percentage of expenditures the numbers when applied allow us to compare the impact of individual bu budgets on available funds in the time from 2016 to 22 St Francis was last on the list

025having and has moved to the fourth largest fund balance over expenditures on the list no other district has come close to that increase St Francis has experienced we left 23 other school districts speaking to just the unreserved fund balance uh this data point is a bit difficult for us to jump but we manage ourselves to jump 19 other school districts uh the numbers in front of you do not lie our staff and students have done more with less the funding has not flowed to the classroom to support students and Educators and everyone complains about test scores when they do our school board should be standing up against that narrative you should counter the the and counter that into a positive effect investing in our students I will share the rest of what I have written

026today you thank you Ryan than for coming in all right our next speaker is shanon Anderson shanon hi thank you board I'm a concerned parent mother and teacher I want to talk about the library materials I am asking that um first children be remov because I am going to read if you read any vulg your language in our meeting I will cut you off we have children in the room and will not allow any vulger language in the room I think that's a perfect example of what I want to talk about okay so um I appreciate that there is going to be a Review Committee vote however I noticed there is not a place for um community members or parents so I'm asking that this vote be tabled and um there be more consideration for

027that the rest of my time I will be reading from a book that is actually in our Middle School his arms wrap around me and his rough hands go straight to my boobs I try to knock them away but I'm no match for his strength you like it rough because I'm just the guy to give it to you that way no extra charge he's on me yanking my hair push me to my knees flips me over you're even prettier from behind know that I hear a zipper lower it is the loudest sound ever he Yanks down my shorts in a single Swift motion he's on Me In my in me humiliating me in every possible way right here on the kitchen floor as promised he is rough biting pounding shredding ripping please the word bounces

028off him ping pongs weakly in my ears trying to fight him only feels him I've been sold and just who would sell me the answer is all too obvious it's Iris my mother as she as he finishes I'll sticky and stinking and revolting Dan will pay extra to go without a sleep no condom sorry no can do cover up I'll take care of you I will pull my t-shirt over my head watch him strip off his jeans his waist is narrow his hips straight beautiful stop it what's wrong with me he's down to his skibbies I should have charged more he's built like a bull that's it thank you for speaking tonight thank Youk you you have the chair now thank you next speaker will be Jean hod Jean good evening school and staff thank

029you for letting me speak this is in regards to the library book review policy that the school board is currently reviewing there are at least three additional concerns that the reviewers down the road need to consider whether or not they have certain books in the library one is that students who are 17 or younger have brains that are not fully developed science tells us it takes about 25 years for a brain to fully develop that is why we have age limits on driving smoking voting marriage everything else this is no different two is what possible good character development does the language and visual aspect display in these books which you will eventually see what does it do for the students one problem is that a lot of these books promote transgender lifestyle and is presented

030to the students as a good thing a previous speaker to the school board indicated school does not teach sexual sexualization however one of these rated books was allegedly given by a teacher to a fourth grader in the class which he took home show to her parents that is exactly sexualization I have here another book that is listed as being in the St Francis school district 15 and the middle libraries called sold it's the sex slave trade and it's rated five out of five five being the worst the rating agency that I use is rated book rated books this is an Agy agency that gets input on how books were ritten they read the whole thing I'm suggesting that the Review Committee you get that point would use this as a template and the foundation on

031which a discussion of the book could start and finish as a guideline I now refer to proposed policy 66.5 R 7 section 7 paragraph 2 thank you for coming in tonight thank you sir all right well thank everyone for coming in for consideration visitors appreciate it all right next up on the agenda will be the consent agenda is your a motion to adopt thank you J is there a second second second thank you Amy discussion on consent if there's no discussion roll call vote Mr Nate hi Mr nette hi Mr Rob hi Miss Amy Miss Pam hi Miss Jill hi and I forar 7 Zer on consent agenda approval thank you very much uh we don't have a high school student here do we she here somewhere or she all right don't see anyone we'll

032skip over 51 we'll go to 52 summary of District District climate she's back here stud somebody here for student oh come on forward please are you with the student council are you student council no thank you no this is a student council representative from the high school I thought you look pretty young for student counc there all right next up thank you sty hello board um I'm here to just give an update on our district climate committee that started this year um the reason why this committee started was in response to uh Behavior needs in the classrooms that were um stated widely and one of our responses was hiring admin uh interns and behavior interventionists but another response is to have a climate committee need to come up with proactive strategies that we can be

033doing schoolwide districtwide and classrooms and so that's why this committee was formed um in this committee uh we meet five times this year July August November coming up in February and again in May um we have teachers from every site on this committee we have a board member um myself we have a region of Center centers of regions of Excellence Megan by um and we have an assistant principal Nick from the Middle School um and so we are working together uh to do several things so I'm going to kind of go through our process from starting in July and where we are now um you'll see that there's a circle here um we have been we start out in a circle sitting in a circle and actually communicating with each other um because this is

034a practice that really helps build relationship it also helps uh everyone have a voice and so you see the guidelines there either's a talking piece that we pass around and everyone takes turns to say their their uh part of the discussion and the others are listening um whatever we share can St it stays here if it's kind of private but if it's Lear if it's a great learning for everyone it goes um and people may pass so just you know there's the guidelines I have a question y who has chosen what kind of topics are we talking about is this it might be what room is that at one school or and our parents our parents involved before the student is ever pulled out to be put in a group like this this is adults

035from schools okay teachers so we're not using this with students um so circles occur in some classrooms it is happening in some places um I believe the middle school has been using it uh I would have to check to see which schools exactly are using it usually Elementary has a morning meeting at the beginning of the day which is in a circle format well I'm not talking that that's what a circle is it it is that understand but my question isn't that my question was what topics are you talking about when you're pulling children out say at the middle school and having them join in a circle what topics are you talking about and are parents given permission for you to pull their student out to have them part of a grou so I'll have

036to research that because this particular presentation is about our district committee so that's a slightly different Focus than what I came in to talk about but I can get you that data if that's something I figured we would then be using this with our students but this is only sta we're modeling it with our our committee to help us make decisions and to help us build relationship within our committee it is a practice that we re is recommended to be used out in the schools we've had some training on it with teachers so that when will we be doing that in the classroom are we going to be doing that in the classroom that's my concern yeah and like we can have this discussion but where why we why are we having this discussion if

037we're not going to be using it in the classroom and I'm hearing that we're not but then I hear we are no that is that is a goal down the road we are very yet in this committee because we're trying to build what what is it that we are going to be doing so that's why this committee came together what are the practices that we're going to be doing but we can uh present more information about use with students in classrooms or or in the office like that yeah because I think it's happening in some Pockets but I would have to find out where well I would hope that those parents are involved who but pockets and that's something I would like to make sure yeah well we'll check into it so we have a

038better understanding as aent it is it's happened okay Vanessa as a parent it is happening the school contacted me before my child was put into a circle so they've been placed in and they were you were it was a bullying situation where my child is being bullied um and so the administrative intern did call me and have that conversation with me before they had any sort of restorative process so it sounds like children then are there they are happening within the schools and every student every parent with them contct it was for me hey I want to differentiate something though there are circles that aren't necessarily restorative and solving problems it can just be for having discussion about a shared topic you know how was your day today it can be as simple as that

039for a circle restorative is one of the processes that could occur it can be a problem solving Circle um but that isn't what I'm talking about right in this moment thank you um so in our Circle um at the beginning we talked about what are your values because what we value is how we're going to come together in this circle and help decide what things are important for the district to be doing when it comes to uh proactive uh strategies that we should be using so these are some of the values that came out of our group that were important to each of us we also asked why is this committee matter to you why are you here what are the hopes you have for the school climate in St Francis schools and there were

040a number of responses from parents we have some teachers who are parents they want a great climate for their kids and their families um we had a number of different reasons why um we also spent some time talking about the difference between culture and climate culture being an a the action and the way we kind of do things it can be unsaid climate is how you perceive things or how it feels when you enter a building so we're focusing more on climate and there are some definitions of school climate from the national school climate Center I'm just going to flip those up it's basically those interpersonal relationships how we feel when we enter a building how we take care of each other when we enter the school so that's what the climate is about how

041does that feel how are we engaged uh we discussed what are some of the buckets of school climate so there are relationships relationship building that's where that restorative practice could occur there's also the safety bucket how are we feeling both physically and emotionally when we're at school how about our environment um do people feel like they belong there are there strategies that encourage connected connected and belonging and then there's that teaching and learning bucket where we have social emotional learning where we might have some lessons on character development we have this umbrella of positive climate that we want to create and so social emotional learning is one of those items under the umbrella as well as our already existing PBIS that we want to strengthen and uh we will be working on that as part

042of our plan and then we mentioned restorative practices would be a practice that um is helpful in problem solving so we had sites record what they currently do because every site already does something some things in the way of uh developing climate and it might be PS rewards but it might be how we enter families when we come to conferences or open house there's a number of ideas that they came up with we also talked about creating a vision what do we want this to be like what is the future of uh the climate we want for our district and from that we did a consensus building workshop where we came up with a cou two ideas came out as possible visions and we worked really hard through a second session of that and came

043up with this being the district Vision that we all agreed on so our vision is to establish one family of students staff and the community working to ensure everyone feels safe welcome valued and heard and so that's where we are at uh we also did some learning about what is Seal there was a video link there if you want to watch that on your own time basically it's the five sections in the center there the self-awareness self-management decision making uh relationship skills and social awareness those are the things that we want developed there are 10 indicators and so we'll be looking through these indicators um right now we're building a foundation which is like do you have a leadership team in your building um we're kind of getting the base set right now but next

044year we'd like to look at adult seal what can we do for the adults in our buildings so that they are taken care of because if they are taken care of they can then take care of their students as well and then they have been going back to their own sites and doing some work in their committees that they have started um working on those Foundation if your foundational uh items are not in place yet what will be your steps um to get those in place and so we give a chunk of time some months in between so they can get the work done until we meet again and so they're coming in February to bring this in um so we can talk about next steps I think that's questions questions comments from the board

045yes ma'am go ahead who said they are coming in who's coming in from the next the team the team the adults correct the climate committee my biggest concern with this is parent involvement and kids not being affected by it um this just looks to me like a really I don't know focused on not accomplishing what we wanted to accomplish um it feels like it's not reaching the parents like it should be that will be the goal we're not there yet okay um I'd like to review this program more and and just make sure we're going in the right direction and feels good and I'm wondering how many other opportunities you looked at before this one was picked um as far as getting the climate where you want it to be so that would be that

046would be my concern as parent involvement and why this program is close to some others that you might have been able to look at I wouldn't really call it a program that's more like the process that mde has helped us um walk through mde being Department of Education so you're saying that M School Board went through a lot of this with your md to give you information Megan boder who works with us every meeting she comes to our meeting she's from MD MD okay so they coming from their level down to the schools all right thank you for presenting tonight um you seen a lot of success with this so far we're we're really at grass yeah we're really at Grassroots of development right now so I wouldn't say anything is happening yet I think

047we're trying to get that foundation and then build what is it that we're going to do Foundation Building is going well yes so far thank you rob uh Pam yeah uh so I guess did I hear you say that there is a school board member that's been assigned to this committee because is that true uh he Nathan joined oh he did okay because we haven't heard any reports on this I'm very surprised that this has come up since it's been going on since July my the other question that I have so I would like to understand better too what this is and what each is there minutes or notes taken from the previous meetings so far because I guess my concern is the same as as director uh Annette is the parent involvement and then

048my other question is um culturally responsive can you explain more of what that is and how that is being discussed in this piece of it because culturally responsive the way I understand it from the teachers Academy is that we have a group of individuals or a small group of individuals who decide and strategize how to put certain things into a classroom yet it does not go through the curriculum committee so there's outside resources that can be used at least this has been my exposure to it uh when I was on that committee so my concern also is the culturally responsive piece so I'd like more information on that if we could get that and you don't have to answer it necessarily now and you want to give like an overview there there hasn't been a

049lot of work in this committee on that topic yet um but I will say the state of Minnesota that is a have to so it is com it is a requirement okay so I still I would like for us as a school board to really review what that looks like because the materials that I looked at the first year I was on the board were not um I I don't think that they were something that parents necessarily would want so I just want to make sure that we're not going to go down a a trail that um we regret later because we've not got parents involved earlier so yeah I I don't think we have materials yet so that would be you know something that we would want to know okay okay right so this

050Stacy thank you for being here today um this is the third time Stacy has brought this to the board that we discussed the district climate committee so it's not new to us tonight she has talked about it before um I asked to be part of the committee just to be um to see what our staff is looking at and how they are um defining the climate of our district right and what steps they're taking to affect that climate it is not something that they are implementing uh it is solely a discussion around what climate looks like to our staff uh to our members of our of our district um the things that we talked about are all tools that they've used to facilitate discussion and it's really been great discussion to see all levels of

051our staff talking and figuring out what's important to them what's important to their facilities um to their expertise again they are our subject matter experts in these areas and what they're doing is they're collaborating as a team and discussing items that affect climate in our school district right all things that we want our staff to be doing and to better the district as we go forward again no process has been implemented um like all committees they are advisory uh so if if something were to come out of this committee I am confident that it would be brought forward as an action item uh to the district or to the school board but again it's not the first time that we've discussed this um it's I believe it's the third time since I've been on the

052board that you brought it up to us andette came to the first meeting as well so she had a v picture of it to okay Rob go ahead Pam it's me again sorry so I'm going to ask the same question that you guys are used to be asking but what data are we using to Define what the climate is so for example you mentioned a couple of things Stacey I couldn't hear real well but you um you know I I would look at bullying harassment some of those those are climate related right so what metrics are we actually are we planning on using metrics to decipher what the climate is and if the climate is getting better or worse and what would those be or maybe you haven't talked about this yet I would say

053yes we're just not there yet okay same thing it's a guided process and they're in the infant stages of it right now just defining what climate means to the committee itself that's the definition that she shared with us tonight I guess I would really hope that we use some data to Define culture because data is behaviors you know we have behaviors that we track that we can be tracking so I really strongly urge that we don't just um it's could be very subjective otherwise is my concern so I want to make sure that if we're spending time because it looks like we've met a number of times we got quite a bit of Staff that's involved in this so if we are going to continue down this path I think it's very important that we

054con that we take into consideration data as quickly as we can because otherwise it's very subjective and then we don't know if we're putting things in place or if we're talking about things that we can actually track and actually make better or or not so that would be my suggestions thank you all right comments Amy yeah I do I um have concerns and I would like to be updated on this more than not I have concerns about what will be discussed by whom and of how much the parents are involved in it are we discussing um and promoting values of beliefs that are in opposition to family beliefs at home this is not our job to raise children it is our job to educate the children and our teachers with all due respect to them

055aren't counselors they're not and are we dabbling into areas that parents don't want you dabbling in in the education I understand they're pushing it at the Department of Education in order for teachers to get their license they need to be trained in social emotional learning CRT whatever you want to call it it's all the same thing I think but whether or not we put it in our classroom and put it in front with our students that's something that we as a school board do have control over and I do have concern that of parent involvement and again pushing things onto students that parents may or may not want you talking to their children about than you I think there's a lot of assumptions being made until we get to that point of what it is

056but I think we do want kids to collaborate we do want kids to get along with each other those are the important skills that would be being Ted but I think we're not quite there on that conversation and we can take in a work session coming up we get more information how's that let's said look ahead at a work session have more discussion what do you see in the future what are we working on they can bring us information we'll have more discussion at the next work station or next work uh session uh it's not agenda item to be worked on for Action tonight so let's bring back more information and next work uh program in February gra is this a committee that we want one or two board members on that should be added

057to the list or is that the work session let's bring up the work session we can't vote on it right now not on the agenda we bring up the work session discuss it and take it from there okay how do that say okay yeah I'm not sure if February uh will work for the work session you know could be later after the yeah part of the February one we do the information and then we have a work session because things things we have to approve right away contracts and some other stuff and then we'll have a partial work session in February but we'll have more information how was that okay right folks we're good to go all right thanks all right next up will be the uh let's see where we at here first read

058a gority list Mr Brandon okay so just the first reading on any questions on from the board from the board any question on it I went do the other day to go back all the way to I the late 1980s we have teaches on there so they protect longterm people no questions on it all right we move on first reading policy revision policy 4:16 515 revision policies on first reading any questions on it any discussion 416 515 we're good to go all right next up admin report Mr superintendent yeah I do have a written uh report in the board packet but I'll highlight verbally some other things that are happening uh probably the most important has to do with the provision of mental health therapy uh Services uh we are updating uh two of our

059contracts with two vendors uh We've added a third uh vendor uh on Mental Health Therapy a fourth one who will help us with opiate education training uh and then a fifth vendor uh called you're not alone uh Amy Waltz gave a presentation earlier about um bringing in therapy dogs uh to work with our kids and so all those things are falling into place the cost of the district and the cost of the taxpayers is zero uh but um I'll give more information in writing you know after some of the things fall into place but you know I would imagine over the next month or so we should be good to go on all of them and really that's that's all I have right now Rob I don't need an update right now these Beth East

060Beth the new facility there the crossroads East cross thing M we update on that at some point how that's going sure it just started in December be great Pam has a question and the big thing yeah Pam go ahead sorry so um so thanks for that so my question would be um is there any way that we can get some kind of a picture of how large our mental health issue is because I know we've Ted talked about this in the past we're adding resources so is there something that we can see I know we can't see student names or that but is there numbers or something that we can see to see if we're getting better from our mental health standpoint or not and what would what would tell us that we need more

061mental health um the you know heal mental health therapy now I know it's a zero cost of a taxpayer but what is driving us to say that we need more so I I'm just wondering if that can be put into some kind of a presentation uh Mr Anderson or something I can certainly ask the experts how they can gauge the need uh but I can't promise that I'll be able to come up with specific metrics um kind of like with the school climate uh issue mental health therapy a lot of that a lot of data is derived from um uh selfs surveys you know about their own needs and you know typically we have not pursued those kinds of surveys in our district for a variety of reasons um but I can certainly ask the

062mental health providers you know how they can measure that within a a setting like St Francis schools good very good thank you okay good any other questions comments about add new report none all right action item is coming up here first one is 6.1 uh B Bond refunding resolution Ryan thank you sir thank you good evening chair star superintendent Anderson and school board members at the January 8th uh school board meeting the district's uh Municipal adviser PMA updated the school board on a potential Bond refunding opportunity for a portion of the 2018a general obligation School building bonds based on current market conditions the uh District's P taxpayers may experience savings between 1. 5 and2 million over the course of the repayment period through a refunding process now I gave that range it's a little bit

063different than what we heard on the 8th of January uh we uh checked with PMA again today based on rates today and they just had uh a refunding that they just did actually today uh we would have estimation of just over $1.5 million of uh of savings for taxpayers based on the rates today uh this savings is all inclusive of closing cost and other fees but actual savings would not be known until we actually go through the process uh of the bond sale so before you this evening is what's called a parameters resolution uh this has been prepared by The District's Bond Council D dorsan Whitney and this resolution gives authorization for the district to move forward with the refunding of those bonds as long as the savings are at or in excess of a

064million dollar um it also gives authority to District leadership to execute the documents and to complete the bond sale if the require requirements of the rers are met so uh once the bonds are sold assuming that they do meet that uh criteria of being in excess of a million dollars um a ratification of the sale would be required by the board and so that would come likely end of February or early March depending on when the sale actually takes place so with that uh administration's recommendation is for the board to approve the parameters resolution to set the stage for the refunding of this portion of our debt so with that I'll turn it back to chair he give us the information you heard what's going on I need a motion all to accept there a

065motion or Jil thank you Jill is there a second second thank you maam discussion I know Rob and I down msba ran into our bond people down we talked to them at msba for a while and they were certainly talking a lot about what you were saying there Ron about what's happening the numbers are changing the million dollars and so forth so they were talking us on the floor at msba here just a couple weeks ago in Minneapolis we ran across their Booth out there andette can you remind me again of what the original mbers were at the last meeting and what they are now yeah it was just under uh just over $1.9 million was the original estimation that was an estimation that was done back in December and so as the market has

066continued to to change and and it will continue to fluctuate so by the time we actually get to selling bonds it could be back up to $2 million or more um or it could be less than the 1.5 that's why we put in and I know the board has had conversations in the past about what should that minimum threshold be I think the last time it was right around $100,000 we have bumped that up to make sure that it's worthy of of the time and energy for the process and the expense of that so it is that million dollar Mark that it would have to be a savings of at least a million dollars per for it to move forward okay Rob so this vote would actually sell them they parameters next vote is just

067formality that's the ratification of it AC yeah you could deny it at that point but we would be out uh the the cost of issuance at that point okay any further discussion all right all in favor we're going to do a roll call any further questions concerns all right roll call vote Nate hi Anette hi Rob hi Amy hi Pam I thank you Mike is I Jill roll call vote 70 for the record 70 to go through with that round just go ahead and process and get a hold of the folks downtown okay next up approval of revised budget there motion on the floor to accept it so thank you uh Rob second by thank thank you Rob and jail all right discussion go ahead Ryan all right and I do have a PowerPoint I

068want to run through uh thank you again chair star superintendent Anderson before you this evening is consideration of the approval of the fy4 revised budget typically school districts do revise their budgets at least one time per year uh the the revision is typically done after the audit occurs so that we have those final fund balances as you know uh back January 8th we heard from our Auditors we do have final fund balances by which we can uh be the the start of our revised budget um at that time uh we also look at any Chang in our assumptions that were made when the uh budget was adopted back in June and we uh we applied those change of assumptions as well as any legislative uh items that may have uh either been changed from the

069final legislative session or made known to us as we get more information throughout the the summer and into the fall in terms of the impact of that and so essentially that's what we have before you this evening um we're revising five of our uh funds so you'll see general fund food uh and interest in service fund or community service funds construction fund and Debt Service all of those um have changes that we're going to be going through so uh we're going to take a look at what the impact of uh those changes are as well as then what is our new fund balance uh projection based on these changes that we have so I want to just draw attention to the worksheet that is in your board faculty I just want to it's a new

070uh format for board members to see for this revised budget I'm just kind to walk through it you'll see on the left hand side of that uh that um revised budget worksheet is those fund balance that we talked about and it's broken out for the general fund you'll see uh your restricted accounts your assigned fund balances and then your unassigned fund balance on the left hand side then the next column over you're going to see the adopted budget uh that the board approved back in June uh both on the revenue and then the expenditure side which on the right hand portion of the worksheet the next column which is green is going to be the adjustments and you'll see that either a positive adjustment meaning we're increasing revenue or decreasing Revenue depending on again those

071adjustments that we're going to look at um you see that then the new revised budget is that next column on to the right of the green and then you'll see that same format on the expenditure side on the far right hand column then is where you would look and see those updated fund balances that we are projecting at this point uh for June 30th of 2024 so as we look first at the general fund um overall we have a an increase in our revenue of about uh just under $2.8 million uh a big portion of this is going to be uh using the remainder of our federal funds about just under 1.5 million dollar uh this is the Esser and the ARP funds that are still remaining much of those funds are required to be

072spent by June 30th we do have a little bit of the funds that go through September but we have all of them budgeted to uh to get the revenue this year and then you'll see the offset on the expenditure side that we have on the expenditure portion as well you also see local revenues uh increasing by about $734,000 um typically when we budget we budget conservatively because the big thing that this has is interest earnings um and so as we come and we look at the budgets here in December we see that we've done quite well on some of the interest earnings uh as well as some of the miscellaneous revenues and then don't as well so we budget conservatively once it becomes more clear to us we bring forward those adjustments it's about 730,000

073more we also traded in as part of our bus purchasing process uh we traded in some of our buses about $311,000 that goes to uh recognize the sale of equipment so that's increased our our Revenue as well then we did have some State and Levy Revenue increases about $244,000 um part of this is just updating the calculations that were used in the initial budgeting uh between our state AIDS and our levies and so there was some some updates that we did to get a more uh accurate picture of what those revenues would be so if we look at the expenditure side those two increase about just under $2.7 million on the expenditure side so again a big chunk of this $1.5 million is those federal funds that we talked about as well uh that have

074the corresponding Revenue to it we also had a $250,000 decrease in the budget for CU comp which is just a it looked like it was a number that uh was not accurate or realistic and so we have brought that down it look like it was a plug number in the budget and so we're just cleaning that one up um and then we also have an increase in our utilities about $888,000 simply just from some of those inflationary uh pressures that we've experienced for the last couple of years uh we see that in our utility line so we're increasing that about 88,000 um it's about a $52,000 increase for support personel uh this is a new legislative uh requirement that we use for social workers counselors things like that and so we're increasing it based on

075uh that state aid that if we don't uh use it we lose it uh $317,000 for special ped buses um this uh we are using ma billing funds this was uh planned but was not budgeted for and so we're adding that to uh the expenditure side as well uh you will remember that the board approved a purchase of the promethian boards and there's a lease that's corresponding with that um and that's about just under $240,000 and so we've added that we have an increase in our building substitutes again uh offsetting uh some of the openings as well as just covering uh sickness and and leaves uh and so on and so we're increasing our building sub budget and then we have a decrease of $100,000 for chargebacks 50,000 for nutrition service and 50,000 for Community

076Ed this is a practice that is typical in school districts and and for this school district as well uh where those two funds will pay uh to offset some of the use that they have for utilities and some of those uh components hasn't been done in this District since before covid and so we are reimplementing that that now you will see as we get to the next two funds that there's plenty of fund balance to to be able to uh accommodate that as well so if we look at the overall impact uh for this you will see on the bottom the uh general fund overall general fund uh fund balance is 22.88330 eight9fly so then if we go on to food and nutrition service um that you see an increase of a revenue of $315,000

077um this is really a result of the free meal program uh that was passed by the state and so our participation has uh been increasing as a result of that uh which again we've seen across the state uh for school districts based on this program so we've seen our state revenue increase by 147,000 our federal increase 190 the big reason for that is the Commodities portion of our Revenue was not budgeted back in June and so we've added that that was about $150,000 for those Commodities and then our local uh revenue is actually decreasing a little bit and that's because because of uh the those free meals we're seeing Less in the allart and some of those other local sources that we had uh before uh students just aren't paying as much for some of

078those extra things because again of those free meals if we look at the expenditure side uh you're seeing a similar uh thing there where it's increasing about 320,000 there big reason for that is our food and supply cost uh and then just salary and benefits for the extra time to serve those meals um and then again we talked about that $50,000 charge back to the general fund so with that you see our uh fund balance at uh 1 point just under $1.6 million for uh food nutrition service uh fund and so uh that's about a 51% uh of expenditure fund balance so it's a very healthy fund balance again we see this across the state with school districts not just because of the free males of this year but also uh a lot of the

079free males that were occurring over Co a lot of school districts in their nutrition service fund balance uh inched up at during those times so we're uh analyzing that very closely working with our nutrition service staff to determine um how to make sure that we're get making good use of those funds typically we're supposed to have between three and nine months worth of expenditures and so we have a little bit more than we typically we hold but uh we're we're being strategic with uh that team to make sure that we're paying good STS up those dollars if we shift gears to our community services uh funds are revenues there is increasing just under $140,000 um you can see uh that uh there's a lot of adjustments both on the revenue and expenditure side uh again

080there some uh calculation adjustments that we made on the levy and state a just to make sure that it's a little bit more accurate in terms of how those revenues are coming in uh so that's a big chunk of it and then there's about $50,000 of additional um eser dollars that are flowing to community service for enrichment so it's additional programming you'll see the offset on the expenditure side as well so there uh you see the an increase of about $100,000 on the expenditure side which are just those two areas first the charge about of $50,000 and then that additional s programming which had that offset in the Rue so you'll see there uh again at the bottom 1322 um million of fund balance for community services that represents a 43.3 s again a very

081healthy fund balance at this point um that has been going down just slightly over the last couple of years so we're monitoring that closely as well Ron question Community ad they're limited to how how much they can have in their account right there's a certain limit they can have there's not there's not a limit on the food nutrient service there's technically a limit correct Community Services here there's not there's not a limit community so I was just curious just now hit me if they're doing a lot of programming of course this may be way out the question facilities here could they build something and then charge back to the people using it because we built a new gym for basketball and whatever whatever could that fund for you for something like that say more we

082so the fund they have an excess fund down the road someday 1.3 million build anything right there would be restrictions there I that's wondering is there restrictions on that because they're going to use it but they're going to have to have the funding extra funding yeah Charing people to use it down the road they wouldn't be able to build anything because there would be restrictions out of that um you know theoretically the the general fund could build something and and again there's ways to charge Community ad through the charge TR process it's not necessarily the cleanest way to do it but there are ways to to be able to do like an idea maybe they could help pay for something like that before Rob asked a question I thought I do it yeah typically the

083community service fund those uh the the funds are highly regulated in terms of how they can use them so they um I'd have to dig in a little bit more but I would be skeptical of whether we could build anything creactivity writing to promote to uh push it the law the law yeah okay just question it's a good question okay uh last two uh I'm going to just go through quickly our building uh our building construction fund the big change here you'll see is uh based on the bonds that we sold back in uh July of 2023 so we increased about $ 2.77 million uh on the revenue side we did increase a little bit on the uh expenditure side just in terms of when we can get some of those construction projects done but

084for the most part we already had those budgeted for so there wasn't much change on the expenditure side uh initially this was uh deficit uh fund balance at the adopted budget because of the sale of those uh construction bonds uh you will see now a fund balance of about 2.22 million and so again we'll be utilizing those uh into the next fisal year as well and then finally The Debt Service fund um on this uh the change in The Debt Service fund is decrease of Revenue of about [Music] $447,000 um most of this again is another uh adjustment in the calculation for State AIDS and levies um additionally because of the good interest rates that we've had there's uh about another $23,000 in interest income on the fund so um with these changes you'll see

085there the fund balance is about 1.65 four million so just uh real quick on next steps in terms of a budget uh standpoint uh the board approves this revised budget this evening it sets the stage for us to get started on fy2 budget uh creation which uh we have a process designed uh to engage with the board uh throughout the spring year as well um there is a potential and I wanted to put this up here that we may come back with another revised budget for the board to consider in May or June uh based on any changes in our assumptions um or or any other changes that we don't anticipate at this time and so that would come to you when we are having conversations about f125 budget so with that I will turn

086it back to chair star for the action okay questions questions from Ron questions all right let's take a roll call vote Jill hi Mike's I Pam hi Amy hi Rob hi Mr nette hi Mr Nate hi thank you pass the 70 good presentation Ron thank you very much next up a resolution on the action item to direct admin to make reductions looking ahead is there motion to accept thank you Jil second second thank you Nate Thank you Pam I'll put Pam down because you don't see her very often all right discussion Mr uh carsman yeah this is a formality that we pass every year uh we do not have uh the need or the plan to make any significant reductions um however we like this in place in case enrollment changes at a certain grade

087or something else comes up unexpectedly uh it is simply a directive to us to make reductions in those programs and positions as we see uh necessary so again um we're not we don't have a budget Target to reduce uh because our our U budget is is positive uh at this time uh but we want this as a formal formality just in case this is based on the law right that you have to have so many months out should we have to cut a position this gives you authorization write that letter correct well yeah or it's kind of the kick the public kickoff of the process right and uh simply an indication that we're constantly looking at our budget uh and if there's an appropriate place where we make a reduction we make a reduction my

088guess is that it would only be used used if there is let's say fewer kindergarten uh students um that than we expect you know and then in in August let's say if there's um an elementary teachers who has resigned then we could make a a reduction in the position without actually impacting any particular person we just want to replace the person so that's the probably the most typical example of when we would use it okay any questions issues if none would take of V for uh Mr Nate hi Mr nette hi Mr Rob hi Miss Amy hi M Pam I Jill hi and Mike says I 7 Zer on that one thank you very much next up approval of he report as due every year Mr Brandon any questions you want presentation anything okay a

089motion to accept thank you Jill second second Rob second discuss on the pay Equity report discussion no discussion all in favor Pam I thank you Amy hi Rob hi Mr Anette hi Mr Nate hi Jill hi and star 70 for the report thank you very much all right next sub 6.5 approval of policy revisions policy 413 507 6065 721 722 your motion to accept thank you Jil second second by Nate discussion I and had hand up first that I'd like to pull 6065 okay discussion all right go ahead and Rob do have to be a motion we're have to make a mo yeah all right so uh now you're making a motion to pull 6065 correct is there a second second there's a second by Pam all right thank you Pam discussion go ahead um

090I have a I want first I want to thank the community that visited today and and brought information to us on that's concerning to that and I did also receive an email from another um member of our public and I i' just like to give a quick read and is coming from that individual this policy is very weak and does not address parental concerns and you need a stronger policy msba is not a media expert their policies are just samples my suggestions hire a media center specialist i s I was surprised there isn't one this individual can determine appropriate books per grade level that align with curriculum I asked the Middle School to restrict my youngest child's access to their language arts classroom Library about six years ago my kid read a book about Mom

091trying to kill her son that sent my kid into a significant mental health spiral that book wasn't even full of prostitution and hangings like some of the district's current books like tricks Kite Runner or blue eyes in my opinion in my opinion it's not book Banning to choose appropriate books thanks for hearing um I would like to table this for more discussion because I I feel like we need to um tweak it a little bit add more public to the um committee um parents or somebody you know at least a few public members that have a vested interest as well on to the committee for reviewing books that come into our district okay for questions comments on on the pool de so right now comments are only on pulling this correct correct right now it's

092just on this we have a motion a second to pull it now we have discussion we have a vote I don't support okay questions comment anybody else Rich Pam yeah I've got another I've got another Community member that uh emailed me um this individual was part of the mission and vision um setting for St Francis back a few years ago and this is the comments um the mission of St Francis Area Schools is to equip all students with the Knowledge and Skills to empower them to achieve their dreams and full potential while and this is highlighted while becoming responsible citizens in a dynamic World core values we believe that this part's highlighted also trust and respect are fundamental for thriving relationships and goes on to say our community flourishes when individuals families and organizations collaborate

093the rest of this is highlighted every person matters and has value responsibility and accountability are essential for personal growth organizational Improvement and Community engagement also highlighted commitment to high expectations is essential to help achieve full individual and Collective potential everyone benefits from culture and diversity are understood and respected lifelong learning enriches individuals and creates opportunities open exchanges of ideas and communicated planning are integral for continuous Improvement so perhaps these create an effective filter for determining what we present to and and make available to the students here's questions do these materials help students to become more or less responsible citizens do they Foster trust and respect do they affirm that every person matters and has value does having these materials present and available communicate or Foster responsibility and accountability to ourselves and others do these materials

094reflect a commitment to high expectations or do they lower expectations um so this comment was basically this individual had gone in and looked at gone and looked at these books and this is what this individual determined that these books are not appropriate for minors so that I just wanted to make sure I read that I guess the other thing that I'd like to read is uh one of the community members came up um and talked about state law so let me just read that to everybody it is unlawful for any person commercially or knowingly to exhibit or display any material which is harmful to miners in its content in any place of public accommodation where miners are or may be present and where miners are a able to view the material unless each item is

095kept in a sealed wrapper at all times so again we got to remind ourselves folks that minors are 17 and under our Middle School we have 11 year olds who are exposed now to to these books at Le a couple of them that we've been made aware of I think there's a bigger list that we really haven't even addressed yet so my concern um along with the community and the comments that have been made so far is there are I'm just going to name off some of the subjects here we've got child molestation we've got pedophilia we've got rape we've got um teenagers who are um who are acts create acts together sexual acts so they're very sexualized they're being used for um for uh prostitution we also have a book that is in the

096language arts uh called The Kite Runner that actually desri describes a boy being raped by a soldier uh with blood and everything so it's very descriptive we've got um another one that's in the language arts classroom also that talks is very descriptive and I won't read it I have it here but I won't read it um because it's very disturbing on um women who are being used for procreation so I'm not going to read that but those are the so I think that we really need to put restrictions in place I I agree that the current policy it's a good start but it is way too loose I mean all we have to do is is um is make one of these um one of these uh literary materials Dr me high standards with one

097or more categories and the categories it's only one category so if it's readable it'll make the grade if it's if it's authentic authentic it'll make the grade um if if it's high interest for uh the intended audience it will make the library so I'd like to also put in um some restrictions or some kind of filter so I I I would like for us to also either put it back to the policy committee or give it another a couple of weeks where we can all put in our now because I I didn't realize that these books were as they are at our last meeting I didn't I hadn't read them so I now feel that we do need to put with this with this lens I feel that we do need to put much more

098restrictions into our policy okay thank you Pam now again the policy we're looking at tonight and we have a motion on the floor in a second to look at the policy what we're looking at is to pass a policy of how do we address any books that someone has a question about we know there certain books have this or that we're not talking that tonight we're talking a policy here that the committee has worked on for many many many months msba V School Board Association has given to us along with the legal side of the house what should be within the policy so I'm not talking about banging books and restricting books tonight we're just talking about what process do we have and this policy is the process to look at any books that's questionable

099once the form is filled out that's all we're talking about tonight on this policy Rob yeah I think this is an improvement from what we have and it's not said in stone saying we can't change it I think what's proposed is going to be a year or two long process that can start now but I think we need to put something in place that will start now so I think what is proposed is an improvement from where we're at okay I'm gonna call a question on it right now no comment Amy um I'm not sure what the proper procedure is to go forward I'm on the policy committee and was was fine with putting this forth to the full board now I'm hearing from several board members that they're not comfortable with the current policy

100so I'm not sure if I'm comfortable just ramming it through because we can I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do because because we can um I'm not sure what we should do I would like to hear from board members do we I wasn't for a work session because it this should be maybe it should be sent back to policy but then I want to make sure that if it's sent back to policy how do we hear the um concerns of other board members because this is bigger than how do we hear them to make sure that when we send it back here that their concerns are addressed within the policy well I would say you're on the committee here the two of you you always address things back to Brandon he can

101bring to the policy committee you be careful not to have any you know what do you call it uh Freedom of Information or what do you call it we can't be talking to each other outside of school here open meeting open meeting law very but I would I would direct anything Brandon people can bring up to the committee Jill so the committee did discuss some of the things that were brought up here having Comm community members involved having board members involved and we completely agree that it is not appropriate to have board members involved nor is is it appropriate to have community members involved so we were unanimous about that and so I know that's one thing that was brought forward I still feel very strongly that it's not a committee that board members or

102the community should be on um I think the other pieces that have been brought forward the rating system it's not something I'm in favor of I'm not in favor of bringing that back for discussion to the committee um I'm fine with how it is right now and moving it forward and making adjustments as we go forward like Rob said bam go ahead yeah I'd like to ask a couple more questions and how did these vulgar books get into our libraries to start with and if I have to read from these books I will uh and I really highly recommend that our school board members before we pass this policy that you get your eyes on these books and start reading them because I'm telling you there these are open to 11 year olds and we've

103already heard from our community members we've already heard some of the words written you know written read out loud but I really I feel complicit at this point that we are we are potentially have already done harm to some of our students with these books being them having access to it and I'm really concerned and I do not feel comfortable at all passing a policy Pam for a second Pam again the policy here what we're talking about we agree there may be books out there this is a policy in a process how do we address those books to get them out of the media center and that's what the policy outlines for us it does not tell us what books to pull there's a whole process the form to fill out the committee gets together

104they discuss it they make the final decision when're not going talk about the book I have a question Mike Ahad I have a question I'm gonna read to you the purpose of this policy is to provide Direction and to delegate responsibility for selection and reconsideration of Library material so this covers not only how do we get a book out of the library which by the way there is case law that tells us that the the school board can at any point in time have a book pulled we do not have to go through a committee or or any of that okay but and and I can review that with you too but but this is for the selection also so if we pass this I'm going to read number five to you folks Library materials

105shall meet high standards of quality in one or more of these categories artistic quality and literary style authenticity critical thinking educational significance factual content High interest for intended audience and readability we only have to these books only have to meet one of those standards and to me that's not a very high bar and not a very high standard because these books then would be allowed back in again because there is nothing in this policy that talks about screening for for the um age appropriate or minor appropriate content we have had movies being rated for how many years 56 plus years I think for rating movies we and we don't have anything to rate these library books or or or on top of it these language art books which disturbs me also so I I just

106do not think that we should be moving forward with this policy when it allows us to put any book into the library just because it's readable okay all right question we're gonna wrap this up take a vot on this one subject matter and N B just read number four above that it's specifically talks about the needs appropriate to reflect the needs ages maturity level emotion development ability levels learning styles Social Development background diversity and needs and interests of the students for whom the material is selected so it does talk about those items as well as the list of one or more that it can have in there again what Mr star said uh this policy is not determining which book should be in our media centers it is a policy that allows our our staff

107our subject matter experts in these areas to have a process on how to evaluate them and bring recommendations forward again we talked about one of our core values of we that trust and respect are fundamental for thriving relationships again I I trust our committee members that are on there so it would be a District administration a principal two teachers and a media specialist that they are going to review the process and bring that through again we are not talking about banning books at no time does it say the word ban in here at no time does it say remove it talks about a process that must be followed again we do not have one in place and this policy allows us to have a process in place can we refine it absolutely like Rob said

108we can refine it we can look at it but again we do not have something in place so right now an email goes to the superintendent the superintendent is supposed to read a book uh and make a determination right now we do not have a committee that does this that's that's what this policy does again I I trust our policy committee that they reviewed this that they looked at these items and came forward to us with it andette okay again I'd like to see this tabled um in the sense that we just don't have Community input um and that's part of the reason these books came into our libraries is because there was no parents or adults that I'm aware of that were helping to make sure that were appropriate for gain levels they weren't

109full of um inappropriate material for ages um and that's how we are where we're at and I feel like we have some concerned parents we need to tap into that um and we need to sit down in a room and have those adult conversations over the material that are in these books no we're not talking materials that's we stay well I'm saying I would like to see the committee added to include community and or parents community at large and a parent okay Rob that we have that yeah I guess I go back to what I said originally is this the end all no but it's better than what we have doing all the changes that are being proposed is it's going to take at least a year do we want the current policy in place

110until this is all figured out Nate Anette I fully agree with you it does state in here that the Review Committee May consult individuals organizations and other resources with relevant Professional Knowledge again I think this policy allows us to have a process to go through the actions that you guys are both talking about that is all we're voting on is the policy to set a procedure that we will follow going forward again it outlines and tells us we can ask for individuals organizations it allows that Review Committee to go hey we're going to have public opinion on this we're going to allow a parent to fill out this form and we can bring them into the discussion and into the committee it allows that in there okay now there's been a call for the question

111I'm allow Amy last comment Amy um I have a question um in the purpose and I'm on the committee the policy committee but it does have the responsibility for the section and consideration of Library materials who would be in charge of the selection are we going to hire someone to to do that the other question I have is can teachers buy classroom books currently today and bring them into their class so I'll answer the first question first uh and Annette brought this up uh through the the words of another individual uh uh regarding a media specialist and I'm supportive of hiring a media specialist we had one many years ago and then I think because of budget reductions it the position or positions were reduced and now we don't have one uh the state uh

112has given mixed signals as far as whether or not we are required to have one in some of the statutes that were just passed last spring it says that we must have a media center specialist um you know working with the school district on these it items uh but then throughout other statutes uh and even the msba policy it says that if we have one the media center specialist does this um you know which kind of insinuates that we don't have to have one so I'm supportive of it uh in terms of funding for it uh this the school is receiving additional funds through the library aid program which was also initiated by the state so I'm a proponent of of asking the board to approve a position like that maybe it's part-time maybe it's

113full-time maybe it's shared with another school district maybe we just consult um however with that being said I think it's highly unlikely that we'll find someone uh you know we're having a hard time finding German teachers and Math teachers media Specialists are really hard to find and all right and can I just finish and as I sit here where all about continually wanting the trust of our community we need to trust them we need to trust them and yet when we have a parot that stood up at the podium and was reading from a book from our library youve gaveled her because she said an inappropriate word and yet that's a book that's in our library that you had together I agree it's in the library but we're talking the policy to ban restrict those

114books let go back to the question here but I have the right to f finish if I could okay I'm on hurry up so as we're sitting here I think we need to make sure that we include our community members we want their trust I want their trust I was shocked at some of the stuff that's in our libraries I would think even some of the people in our schools are shocked they didn't maybe know it was in there but I don't think I think if we waited and got this right I don't think we need a process right now we could get a list together bring it forth at the school board meeting have a vote to remove the books we don't need a policy right now I want to get it right I

115don't think it's right I don't think what we have in front of us is right I am appalled by I could read something here that's in one of our books in the library and who knows if we've already been banned from YouTube but it would ban us and yet these are in our books they're in our libraries folks and yet we're all oh my God they sent that us at a public library but it's okay to have them in our school libraries we're not Bing books they can go out and get the book in a public library we're a business of Education of educating students where does it say that we need to talk about sex and rape and and other stuff that I've read that I'm like oh my God I can't believe these

116are in our libraries i h they're in their libraries I wouldn't want my children to be able to get a hold of it really and everybody's tiptoeing and oh my gosh is just horrible I think it's horrible they're in there I don't know how they got in there but I would like to see them out and I would have liked to see them out yesterday we have a list the books and there needs to I would like Radio Systems I don't think we're ready I put this through and The more I've seen I didn't know about these books when I was talking about the policy committee when this came through in November I got this about two weeks ago and I'm like whoa all right shocking so we know we have a question here all

117right so we're going to take a vote at this time there'll be a roll call vote there's a motion a second to uh take uh 6065 out of the action item this time I going take a roll call Vote Yes or No yay to keep it n to get rid of it or or to take it from the list of P policy right and so I'm assuming that if that motion passes the board would consider approval of the other policies and then consider the uh 605 606 we have a motion a second for all of them yes yeah we did have all of them right and then we came back with a net asking to pull it yeah so I'm kind of viewing that as an amendment all right go ahead I'm surprised that she

118wasn't allowed to pull it I'm surprised that an that wasn't allowed to pull the policy why is it all or nothing we pulled other policies and debated them separately and suddenly now we have to it's Aller one so you can I would assume I'm not sure why that went forward that doesn't seem fair and that isn't how we've done things in the past we had a motion on the floor for all of them that that the motion was pending she made a motion on top of that motion to pull 606 so right now we we're considering her motion to pull 606 from the total amount Y and we'll go back and we'll everything else y all right so just a clarification clarification so if we pass to pull it is there a vote on that

119one separately or is that just pulled and gone no we're going we're going to vote on 606 to be pulled and then what and then I'll come back and ask for the rest of it to be approved or disapproved the other one remaining and when we come back to 605 no well if we pull it we pull it and we'll take it back to the committee and they can discuss it back for that one if you pull it who want to discuss it she well we'd have to come back that it was second we want to take correct okay any I would that's that's what I thought you that is that is what we do for consent agenda items or anything else you can pull a consent agenda item and do it and I would

120think in the future I would hope that if someone wanted to talk about a you're not always going to be in favor of all 10 policies you may want to pull one and talk about it separately I would hope board members would always feel at everyone at this table comfortable with pulling an a policy and talking about it separately without putting all of the policies at risk of not passing so the vot's going to be on pull the policy or don't pull the policy 606 that's what we're voting on first all right Pam understand we're going to vote on pulling the policy yay or nay then we'll come back and vote in y or nay on 413 507 721 722 so let's go back to what inet pulled on us all right do we pull

12166.5 or not yeah or nay Nate yay yay pull it or Nate to pull you say pull it all right Anette yes Anette says pull it Rob yes could pull it Amy yes Pam pull it yes pull it Jill no and I vote no so it's uh 52 vote 52 vote we're going to pull 66.5 from theight agenda we're going to pull it now we're going to vote Rob we just pulled it out of there we pull it out we didn't pull it out tonight it's done committee is going to have to work on it or somebody else no that's not so what you going to do with it it would it would considered separately and then the board I would hope everyone on here as a board member could discuss what do we do

122with it where does it go back to policy do we have a work session because this is bigger than right so I I don't know maybe it ends up as the board we decide that it goes back to policy but I think because because of how this is moving I would feel all board members should be able to have the opportunity otherwise is going to end up here again and we're going to be doing this again in a month and I would rather do it right and figure out where does this need to go in order to get it right and to get it so that the board can then vote on it so in other words that we could consider the motion to approve the other policies and then really it's up to the

123board to decide what to do a 60 6.5 so we could approve it we could reject it we could table it or refer to the committee or whatever the board decides okay I think that's what the original motion was probably we go back and approve the other ones or disapproved okay right we know about 606 now the the remaining policies on the on the uh agenda all right the remaining ones V in favor y or nay Nate I have discussion on it shouldn't be controversial but 413 it references the harassment violence Report Form it just still says policy 532 on the bottom of that form just that form the right to policy number and that was it so yeah we'll make that change and then we'll put it on the website okay anything else all

124right all right so approve the other policy Nate hi Anette hi Rob hi Amy hi Pam hi thank youil hi and star I 70 all right now we're back to 66.5 discussion or you want to have a motion to a okay it should be a motion to accept in a second and then discussion correct you pull it yeah or whatever you know if there's a motion on the floor and there's a second then okay you we discuss it then and yes I make a motion we table 6065 and send it back to policy um to consider uh public um and what they would like to see as part of that policy is their involvement for transparency okay motion to pull it and send it back to committee there second Amy second before I second how

125will we how do we I I understand what you want but I'm not sure how to get there because generally the policy committee is the made up of community members so I'm not sure how we right the policy is you know the superintendent Director of Human Services Jill myself on there that's it's open to the public but would it be that we want community members to email us or I mean how I'm just trying to to figure out how we get to your cons to having your okay what if we let's get a second we going have discussion okay let's do that and what you're saying all right Pam h stand by who has a second just for discussion here second is there a second to pull 6065 table to table or the table put

126table is there a second second okay thank you wait stand by Pam we have a second now we're going to have discussion of what to do with it Pam okay so so my what I would like to see us do as I suggested in the first last week was have a work session to really get into this and really understand what are the what are the issues and what are the concerns and really do due diligence to this policy because it's a very important policy it affects all of our classrooms we know that there are our books in classrooms right now we don't know how they got there we're not sure what criteria they got there so I think we need to really spend time and we've heard from our community and we've got our

127board members myself included that really have concerns over how this material gets here and how do we how do we do a better job of screening the material that gets into our libraries and in our schools okay comment Rob can we pass this tonight and put it right back on for on policy we look at that just so we get something in place right now repeat that one more time come back can we pass it tonight to get the policy in place and then just open it up right away to revisit Brandon saying yes you can pass it approve it you bring it back up again for discussion modification and changes to it Amy how how do we handle today if if a parent has a concern of a book what is the process today

128of having that book looked at removed what can you do Mr ederson yeah and um so for 25 years I had one request to remove a book from a middle school in a different district and I read the book and I granted the change um just because the age range was more appropriate for high school so I left it in the high school but took it out of the middle school that was 25 years worth and I've had maybe five or six since I've been here for the last year and a half and so there were one or two parents of fourth graders who raised concerns about you know uh the books that their kids had uh and so I temporarily asked the the teachers to remove the books from that classroom until we could

129figure things out uh there was uh one book uh well the the one person uh read excerpts from it today it's called tricks I'd promise some um acquaintances of mine or friends of mine that I would read it last August I finished it over Christmas break the 600 page book um and so I really thought about it because uh the book has some some passages that made me feel uncomfortable uh but in totality I thought the book was actually well done it had language that maybe we don't feel good about uh but the book is about the the reasons why child prostitution happens or some of the reasons why kids become involved in it and it talks about the nature of child prostitution you know the topic itself is disturbing you know we are all

130against that and so when I when I thought about that um I did uh decide at least for now that you know it's a it's a book for young readers um or not young readers but um I can't remember the term that one of our uh rating Services uses uh but I thought it was appropriate for 9th through 12th uh but I did today actually ironically um ask to temporarily remove that book from the middle school media center um and again we have it in the media center if a parent says it's okay for the child to read you know so be it but it's not g to be available to you know the for public um review by kids in the in the media center so now that email went out today it takes

131a while for the principal to talk to the media person to find the books you know so it might be in there right now but you know it'll be removed shortly so that's kind of the process um that I've been using I try to read the books uh when I can um but um you know we need to find a better solution and I think a media center specialist would be the key for that Jill so the current process all rests on one person and until we come to an agreement on a policy it'll all rest on one person like Rob said if we approve this policy as it is tonight we at least have something with board that we can start start using as a vehicle to review books and also bring books in

132secondly it would be a jumping off point for place to make any modifications um I I don't think opening this up for a huge discussion um is is what is best for us as a board um we're going to start having every policy that is somewhat controversial all of a sudden be something that we're going to be looking at having everyone involved in and where are we going to draw our limits because we we were elected to make decisions for our constituents and that's what I'm here for I was I am supportive of this policy okay last comment all right so the vote's going to be on do we pull this not use itable a table table and send it back to are we going to table this or not table this policy is the

133vote coming up all right Pam understand the table and not table okay so the table grab last comment can we just say can we approve it or it will be the motion the motion right now is to table the policy and send it back to committee if that doesn't whatever the board decides then I guess think we would have to vote on the approval tonight but I could be wrong because if it fails being tabled then it would have to be move forward right if we don't table it it's approved no we'll have to vote on the approval no it isn't automatically approved those are yeah so the the motion on the table is to or the motion is the table the policy and I was just double-checking my Roberts rules of orders I don't

134think it's allowable to actually discuss the motion so we're kind of pushing it already but um you know I think we got to follow the you know the will of the the the board and I think the intent intention is to discuss whether or not should be tabled so you know it's not like we're going to be hung out to dry for trying to do the right thing but the way I read it the motion is the table it and so we' take the the vote on that uh if it passes then it's staed if it doesn't pass then the board could entertain a different motion whatever that might be all right so the V is going to be table or not table all right Nate nette hi okay Rob Amy I to table J

135Pam table I and I say no okay table okay so ends up uh Vanessa you get all that for who's who on the ru call yep okay now we go back to it again again Jill thank you second Rob seconds discussion through the discussion V Amy motion to approve if if if a board member votes to approve um I would hope that we're going to then continue to look at this in the policy committee uh because I heard big concerns from other board members and I feel like if we didn't entertain this back at the policy that but I'm fine with okay guess okay all right so the question is to yeah and if I could add you know I think that's true for other policies too uh you know even though we happens all

136the time with msba policies we'll approve them and then we get suggested changes from msba and so we go back I think we've heard um good public comment uh and so we could if you decide to approve it we can still take it back for further review at the policy committee and perhaps come back with an updated version okay so we have a motion the floor in a second to approve 66.5 all right Jill hi Pam n okay Vanessa keeping track y Amy thank you Rob andette no and Nate five and I'm also an I so it's a 57 uh 52 vote to approve it and then bring it back if need be to a committee to to our committee group here modify it work with it adjust as we go along but least we

137have something thank you for everybody's support here because it was do this and do that y all have comments and suggestions how to make all this happen so thank you very much that we made it happen can I just one more thing uh if there are suggested changes if you could just email me like a bullet point for example uh the request for parent um Representatives I've also heard that there should be requests for student Representatives um you know should we have a rating scale who decides what when um you know send those to me and then I'll share with Brandon as well as the committee members and we'll go from there all right good all right uh next up I see is approval is there something else so I just have another question and

138and I'm just going to throw this out here I would like to make a motion to pull some of these eight books that were identified just wondering if I could get a second because I think these are that bad because I've read them okay that's not on the agenda to pull any books to restrict books tonight that's that's off the agenda and that won't be appropriate to put something out to do something that's not on the acttion it I'm already for other people to take a look at tonight P I don't think that that's against Robert's Rules I think we can still make a motion so I'm just going to throw it out there I want to Mo I'd like to make a motion to pull the eight of the nine book or the nine

139books that were identified as being in our libraries I don't get a second I don't get a second but uh which eight books were those um it's the one that that Carson that you had um the the Freedom of Information Act uh yeah I did receive an email at some point a couple weeks ago but I don't think we have that information in our packet today okay I have a motion stand by Amy can I ask that Pam asked to have it placed on a future agenda instead of putting it on tonight okay I can do that I can do that if you would identify the eight books you're talking about Pam and we'll talk about yeah I'll get it on the next agenda how's that you can do that because nothing on the agenda

140right now is not fair to bring something I got it got it so bring it to us in the future and we can do that okay okay if that's going to be on a future agenda I would request that we put it far enough out and we get the book names early enough so I have time to read all of those books before The that meeting so at least probably if there's eight books for sure two months out so I can schedule four books per month mate I agree with that comment if it's going to be on us to vote it I would like to have the chance to have time to right okay good okay Pam thank you appreciate it thank you much all right move on here approval of 2024 board member committee

141assignment I haven't heard back any big big changes so is there a motion to accept thank you J is there a second thank you rob discussion no discussion Nate hi Rob Amy Pam ontee reports committees thank you Jill and stars ey 70 on the committee upcoming topic preliminary topic and meetings and everything Pam as you know bring it to us in the future information there for you okay any other questions about the meeting dates and so forth what's happening what's going on okay School Board member reports uh let's start with Jill nothing Pam I don't have anything all right you're healthy tonight you feel good I'm healthy yes thanks for joining tonight all right thank you Amy Rob MBA conference lot inform to see and that was Amy Kelly and then also attended the 12

142um teachers negotiation we have our next one set up as well continuing to okay and same here my reports on there by msba if anything you got to go because of chocolate chip cookies but Elders out there they always have good cookies for all right anything else for goody order tonight for for the information tonight if not we need ad journ at 8:30 2 hours it's perfectly timing anything that we thank you just FYI sorry yep it's just because the salary Chang yep can you add that to the thanks Vanessa you're welcome see you Pam bye Pam take care guys bye