March 16, 2026 Regular Board Meeting

001Will do the Pledge of Allegiance, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> [clears throat] >> This meeting of the Brainerd School Board is being conducted in accordance with Minnesota Statutes 13D.02. This meeting is being live-streamed. Access to the recording is available on the school district Look for a motion to approve the agenda as amended. We did pull the um financial audit off there for next month. Wasn't quite finished. I will move to approve the agenda. Madam Chair. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead for a second, then I'll then I'll come in. Are we going to pull >> I'll second. All right, we've got a motion by Director

002Brekken, a second by Director Ward. Any discussion? Yeah, Madam Chair. Mhm. Okay, um I would like to add two agenda items. Um I should have done that before you called for the motion, but they would be the following discussion under new business. They would be the the following discussion on recruitment and retention of staff. And then the next one would be under new business, legislative action. So, there's two items I would like to add to the agenda under new business. All right, so Director Ward is making a motion to amend the amended agenda by adding a discussion on recruitment and retention of staff and legislative action. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay, we've got a motion to amend the amended agenda from Director Ward to add the discussion on recruitment and retention and legislative

003action. We've got a second by Director Brekken. Any further discussion on the amendment? Madam Chair. Yes. John, would you be amenable to two separate motions? No prob- no problem. In other words, motion for one and a motion for another. Or, sure. Okay. Okay, this is getting confusing now. >> Why don't you make the motion, John? Make the motion on the first one. Yeah, let's go that route. Okay, I'll move I'd like to move to add to the agenda under new business, um discussion on recruitment and retention of staff. Okay, so we've got a motion to amend the amended agenda. Is there a second? I'll second. Director Brekken is second. Any further discussion on the discussion of recruitment and retention of staff to be added to the amended agenda? What are we trying to What are

004you What are you looking for, John? I mean, is this more Do you think you could see better in a workshop or No one's got a presentation ready, do they, Peter? No. So, what are we going to talk about? Just curiosity. >> Um Yeah, I'd like to get a a committee set up to work towards this, to talk about the staff recruitment and retention. That would be my my goal. And it And it absolutely can be a workshop, but I want to bring it up as an agenda item. What's that? Any further discussion? Well, do you want to change your motion that we um we form a committee? And then that could be the motion and we could talk about it and then we can vote on it whether we want to set up a

005committee or not. Does that make more sense? Than to just talk about >> has to be But does it have to be an agenda item, Madam Chair? Um it would I think it that would be an agenda item either way. We'd make that amendment to the agenda right now to either add it as a discussion item or add it as a item to discuss having a committee. Either one of those would be an addition to the agenda. John, can I ask you a question? Absolutely. Are you you're chair of the personnel and benefits committee, correct? Yes. Thank you. Yes, it is me. Uh No. Or DJ. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay. No. No. No. Okay. Nope, that was just a question. Yep. Got my answer. Thank you. All right, any further discussion on that amendment to

006the agenda? If not, we'll do a roll call vote, please. DJ Donley. Yes. Stephanie Ederman. Yes. Randy Heitman. No. Sarah Speer. Yes. John Ward. Yes. Bill Brekken. >> Yes. Okay, we'll add a new discussion item under new business to discuss the recruitment and retention of staff. Now, we'll go back to the approval of the agenda, the amended agenda. Madam Chair. Yes. Madam Chair. Yes, Director Ward. Uh I'd like to move that under new business again, uh I'd like to add amend the agenda to add the following new business, legislative action discussion, very important kind of deal. So, legislative action discussion. That would be my That would be my agenda item. All right, we've got a motion to add an agenda item for legislative action discussion. Is there a second? Second. We've got a motion by

007Director Ward, a second by Director Heitman. Any discussion? What are we going to talk about? Legislation? Legislative action? Yep. We'll find out. Just some things that I think that uh need to be addressed um with a short session. The session's done May 18th, and so there's a time crunch here, and there's some things that we need to, in my opinion, um address or try to advocate for or whatever. I did, too. I don't know what's going on. All right, any further discussion? We'll do a roll call vote on the amendment. >> have a second, do we? Oh, yeah, we do. Randy. Sorry. Stephanie Ederman. Yes. Randy Heitman. Yes. Sarah Speer. Yes. John Ward. Yes. Brekken. Yes. DJ Donley. DJ Donley. Yeah, him, too. Yes. Donley. >> [laughter] >> Was that a yes? Thank you, Kelly.

008All right, back to the agenda. We've got two >> Yep. So, those things we want to pull out of the consent agenda, do they need to be pulled now? We can do that when we get to the consent agenda. >> that sounds good. Great question. All right, so yeah. >> That'll be what an action item under new business, correct? Yes, we will put both of those as action items under new business, so it'll be number three and number four. Just wanted to make sure where we Actually, probably yeah. Okay, good. discussion items. Good. Okay. Thanks for that clarification. All right, back to the approval of the agenda as amended. Uh it has the first amendment that we came into this meeting with to remove >> [laughter] >> the financial audit and the additional two amendments

009to the agenda to add the discussion items. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? >> I'll make a motion. Second. Actually, I take that back. We already had a motion and a second in place for that before we started down the other path. So, we've got a motion by Director Brekken, a second by Director Ward. Any discussion on the agenda? All right, we'll do a roll call vote, please. Randy Heitman. Yes. Sarah Speer. Yes. John Ward. Yes. Brekken. Yes. DJ Donley. Yes. Stephanie Ederman. Yes. Thank you, Kelly. And we have an agenda. >> [laughter] >> 10 minutes in. Doing well. All right, we've got some recognitions here that I'll read through if you guys are okay with that, and then I'll ask Dr. Stelmock to come up and talk about the Math Masters ones

010at the end. So, we'll start with congratulations to the following. The boys and girls Nordic ski teams both qualified for the Minnesota State High School League State Tournament. The boys team took ninth place, and the girls team took 10th place. Anna Lisa Baird finished fourth place in pursuit, and Owen Robertson finished 13th place in pursuit. Congratulations. The Warrior dance team won section 4 AAA championship in both kick and jazz, as well as the Minnesota State High School League Class AAA State Championships in both jazz and kick. Fantastic. And the Warrior dance team coach, Cindy Claw, was named the section 4 AAA head coach of the year. The Warrior wrestling team won the section 8 AAA team championship. Individual qualifiers were Ari Pekar, fifth place at state. Ariana Halbert, sixth place at sixth place at state,

011Serenity Krebsbach, Jake Rodriguez, Ben Rodriguez, Easton Dirks. Second place at state, William Dirks, Jackson Burhow, and Tyce Faber. And the adapted floor hockey team won won the MSHSL adapted floor hockey PI state championship. And the Warrior knowledgeable team took third place at the section tournament and qualified for the state tournament. The boys swimming and diving team was crowned the Section Lakes Conference champions. Individual state qualifiers in the 200 medley relay, ninth place at state were Carter Dirks, uh Jack Tachi, uh Drew Haglin, Bennett Day. In the 100 fly, Drew Haglin. In the 200 free relay, 14th place at state, Grady Sumption, Bennett Day, Brooks Barachek, and Henry McCauley. In the 100 free, Bennett Day. In eighth place at state in the 400 relay, 14th place at state, uh were Drew Haglin, Brooks Barachek, Henry McCauley,

012and Bennett Day. And then, thank you, Dr. Stelmac, for sharing with us about Math Masters. You're welcome. So, um Math Masters um began as a fifth grade math competition program back in 1989 with teams from 44 schools taking parts. In 1995, the competition expanded to add sixth graders, and our sixth grade team went this year, that was the Friday before spring break. We've got some fifth grade teams who are going pretty soo- soon as well to the fifth grade one. >> [clears throat] >> Back in 2022, fourth grade was added, and so I know that our elementaries, and from having been at Baxter, our elementaries often participate in in the Math Masters as well for fourth grade. So, this year there were approximately 500 students signed up for both the fifth and the sixth grade

013competition, overall total. And we had 29 sixth graders participate from Forestview. Um it's offered at several locations, and we went to the Sourcewell one, just it's less expensive to go close um for bussing and all of that. So, receiving awards in the fact drill competition, we took first place, Marley Shaw and Everett Grams. Third place, Elam Anderson. Fourth place, Delaney Gervey. Seventh place, Hannah Larson. Eighth place, um Eva Rimsa. And ninth place, Stella Vang and Carter Root. Um receiving awards in the individual problem solving competition, first place, Elam Anderson. Second place, Marley Shaw. Fourth place, Ara Halsbersma. Fifth place, Sullivan Brantley. Sixth place, Everett Grams. And 10th place, Eva Rimsa. >> [clears throat] >> And then, receiving awards in the team competition, there were 16 total teams there. We took both first and second place.

014First place on our team, Marley Shaw, Kira Swanson, Everett Grams, Annel Hadiya, and Ara Halsbersma. And our second place team, Elam Anderson, Sullivan Brantley, Emmalyn Smith, Stella Vang, and Ruby Shaw. Uh these students worked hard, practiced a lot to get ready. Um And Mr. Lane Danielson, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that he was the staff member who took on the coaching of that. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> All right, next up we have public input. A member of the public can address the board during this time. Comments will be limited 3 minutes. Complaints or allegations against students or employees may not be discussed due to data privacy. Complaints or allegations must be submitted in writing to Superintendent Grant. The Board of Education and our superintendent will

015not converse with guests to address the topics discussed at that time. And up first, we have Doug Kern, please. What are you expecting that quick? Yeah, good evening. Um I would have brought this to the last school board meeting, but I thought it was a special meeting with no public input, and I was surprised that there was public input. And I know, Director Ward, you know, kind of threw it threw it off a little bit. Um One of the things that uh I'm concerned about was I would have brought this up before, the ICE walkout, the ICE protest that they had. You know, I want to see this school succeed. I want to see, you know, it may not seem like that sometimes, but I want to see our teachers be uh the retention, like

016John's talking about later. Yeah, I want to see them uh want to be here and want to stay here. Um When I had the IT department, they ran a ICE protest, um I did a data request. 1,279 records just for the word ICE protest. Now, that's inner office memos that are going back and forth. They say it was student led. I'm concerned that it wasn't student led because the students around the state, there's no way that they could link together like that without help. Um Anyway, uh that that I was just really disappointed that there there was public comment last time around on February 10th. Um uh just uh that ICE walkout, you know, to to know that the students were down the street with no supervision. Um at least that's what I was told,

017there was no supervision. I I don't know if they were considered tardy, if their parents were notified that they left, um anything concerning the safety of the students. I that's a big concern. It's a big concern. Uh anyway, I I'll move on with that um there's historical facts about uh tribal land. Um I'll just read this real quick. I learned North American history. My teacher was Reginald Mead. I'll never forget Reginald Mead. He taught me all about uh North American history. You know, you're going to have some uh people talking about um APAC. I think that's what it's called. And here's what I learned. You know, we when we were in school, we had to learn from Mexico all the way to Alaska where all the tribes dwelled, where they all were, from the Cree

018to the Shawnee to, you name it, the Sioux, the Chippewa. Here's something that hap- that I learned um from Reginald Mead. The [clears throat] Sioux took the lands from the Cheyenne who took it from the Kiowa, I might pronounce names wrong, who took it from the Pawnee, who took it from the Crow, who took it from the Arikara. Uh Minnesota was taken by the Ojibwa from the Sioux. And the victors not only took their land, they also enslaved their enemies. Um the Battle of Cross Lake was one of those historical things that I think every student in Minnesota, at least in this area, should know about. The Battle of Cross Lake. And I would venture to guess that you wouldn't find a student in Brainerd High School that would know about the Battle of Cross

019Lake. And, you know, I I just was so into history by the way that the teacher presented history. And it it was just uh I really really think that, you know, we have to go that we have to understand that North American history did not start with the Vikings or Columbus. Thank you. Thank you. Up next, we have Sarah Rhoda, please. >> [clears throat] >> Hello. My name is Sarah Rhoda. I'm an educational assistant. I was hired in 2009 and have worked at BHS the entire time. For the last 5 years, I have had the honor to serve as president of the educational assistants union. I have sat in the chairs behind me for nearly every board meeting. The last time I spoke was when our contract was brought to the board for approval in

0202023. I am not here to talk about the fact that the EAs are currently working without a contract that ended in June of 2025. The district and our union are currently in mediation, and it is my hope that an agreement can be reached that is fair and equitable to all parties. What I am here to talk about is something that has been weighing on my heart ever since the budget cuts, operating levies, voting or not voting has been discussed in this boardroom and in public forums. I consider myself an intelligent person. I understand hard choices have to be made. But what I cannot understand is why it seems like we are trying to balance the budget off the backs of the people that make the least and care for the most vulnerable at our school.

021Educational assistants care for students from birth to 21. We provide support with physical care, feeding, dressing, toileting, and mobility. We provide academic support, assisting teachers and to individual students. We provide emotional support. We give hugs, shoulders cry on, and high fives. We cheer victories, and we support students when things don't go as planned. We provide security. We check bathrooms for vaping. We defuse situations before things get volatile. We put ourselves in harm's way way more often than we care to admit. We provide discipline support through hallway duty, playground duty, and various types of detention. We provide vocational support, assisting students in school-based vocational pro- programs such as the Warrior Outlet. Why do we do this job? I ask myself that on a fairly regular basis. The hours are pretty good. There's no nights and weekends,

022and most of us don't don't do a lot of heavy lifting, unless you count squirming toddlers or wheelchair transfers. The benefits are also decent. We earn sick time, and we have personal days. We have access to health insurance that is not bad, but we do pay for it. For example, family plan C is $368 per paycheck, and the average pay is $16 to $18 an hour. Why do we do it? We do it for the kids. We like the kids. We like them when we're good when they're good, and we like them when they're challenging. We love to see them grow and change. We love to see the challenging behaviors get a little bit less challenging over time. The educational assistants and nurses are covered by the same contract. We care for the most vulnerable

023and often the most marginalized in the school community. Parents hand their most precious thing, their child, over to us every day. Parents of special needs children go a little bit further. They hand us their special their little person, often fragile, often mis- misunderstood, for us to care for 7 hours. The works of nurses and educational assistants are acts of service. All of this brings to mind from the book of Matthew chapter 25 verse 40 when Jesus said, "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me." An act of service shown to the poor, marginalized, or vulnerable are directly recognized as an act of service to God. Thank you. All right, next up we have Laura Paulson, please. Good evening. My name is Laura Paulson. I've worked at Riverside Elementary since

0242015. I've been working without a contract since July 1st. I quit my job as an accountant to go back to school and try to help change the world one small child at a time. I'm nervous to sit and speak before you, but it's time for more people to find their voice and show you our concerns. Both of my children graduated from BHS and we actually open enrolled into the district. We were supposed to be at Pillager, but this district met the needs of my children. My daughter graduated from BHS and she's pursuing her nursing degree with dreams of becoming a nurse anesthetist because of this district. This district met the needs for her by helping her with music and dedication through sports. She has a hard work ethic. She supports herself as a 21-year-old. My

025son started out in the level three autism program and each and every year had a large team of certified staff and support staff encouraging him to do hard things. When he was little, I'm not sure what his future was. I didn't know if he would read. I didn't know if he would drive. I didn't know if he would be with his peers. I can never say thank you enough to the amazing people who transformed him into the successful young man he is now. Many of those people are sitting behind me right now. >> [snorts] >> Paul Bunyan Cooperative also played a huge part in this. He's on the Dean's list at CLC. He bought a car with a cash he earned at Mickey's working for 4 years. He got a loan. He paid for another

026car. >> [sighs and gasps] >> He now has the confidence to continue his educational path. I sit here before you today as a tired, some days broken teacher who's overwhelmed, overworked, and underpaid. Class sizes have dramatically increased, which correlates to increased behaviors. They have limited consequences right now. It impacts not only myself, my co-workers, and my students. I never thought I'd have to lock a door to keep students out of my classroom. I never thought I'd have to find alternative routes within our school, on the playground, in different hallways just to keep my students safe and shielded from the behaviors and inappropriate language for 6- and 7-year-olds. I never thought I'd have to make a child wait to use the bathroom for 10 minutes so another adult could help them escort them 10 ft from

027my doorway. I never thought that this would be what education would come to in the Brainerd school district. The next passage was written by an anonymous educator and it speaks volumes about what all educators in our district feel. Teachers are expect- expected to break quietly. Teachers are the only ones expected to absorb dysfunction and call it dedication. No curriculum? Figure it out. No support? Figure it out. Behavior out of control? Build some relationships. Test scores down? Oh, work harder. Be creative. Funding cut? Be creative. Parents upset? You need to be professional. You are expected to stretch, shrink, sacrifice, and smile. And if you finally say this isn't sustainable, nobody wants to listen. They'll tell you to remember your why. This is too much. This isn't fair. This isn't how a career should feel. We are

028not selfish for wanting stability, respect, pay that reflects our skills, a life that doesn't revolve around surviving on a Monday. Thank you. Thank you. All right, up next we have Misha Yuks. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly. Misha? Uh, maybe. Maybe Michael Erickson. Sorry. I'm sorry. [laughter] No, I should have gotten that. Thank you. Sorry. Usually my writing's better than that. No, it's my reading. Okay. [laughter] Uh, I'm here to speak in behalf of the uh APAC stuff. I know you're going to do a report on it later. Um, basically what I want to bring up is a is a few things. Um, for you and I guess the general public, I want to uh just talk. Have you ever been followed in a store, been accused of theft, pulled over for no

029apparent reason by the police? Uh, I have. Uh, and it wasn't because I was drunk. Okay, um I have and it's because of the color of my skin. And um for most of your students that look different, they will experience something like that. Um, and especially your Native American students. Um, so that's why many of the things that the APAC group are pushing for, discipline, um safety, attendance issues are so important to them. Because those are the kind of issues that will help you and help them make sure that hopefully those students will become successful. Okay? Um and that's that's kind of the bottom line. You know, we want our kids to be successful, but the reality is kids that are black, indigenous, people of color, they are not successful. They struggle. All people are

030not equal because we do not treat them equally. That's the bottom line. We do not treat all people equally. At one point in my career, I had the pleasure of running an Indian education program in International Falls, working with APAC, school board members, parents, teachers. Kids were always the best. Uh, we had board members on our APAC committee. Um I understand uh Stephanie was supposed to be on the committee. My understanding is she has not went to a meeting this year. Um, that's a disappointment. Um The board needs to be involved in those kind of things. Another thing that the board needs to realize and the teachers need to realize is in in indigenous communities, uh a vast majority of indigenous communities, they are matriarchal, which is different than Caucasian communities. Okay? Uh indigenous communities

031are matriarchal, which doesn't necessarily mean that they run the show, but they're at least equal. Okay, so the power structure is an equal power structure. Okay, so it's not male dominated. Um Okay. Thank you, Michael. Okay. Thanks. Up next we have Tim Ettinger, please. Superintendent Grant and members of the school board, my name is Tim Ettinger and I live in Nisswa. I've lived in the Brainerd school district for 35 plus years and I'm a retired public school teacher who taught for 34 years. I truly wish I wasn't here tonight. I tried to shine a historic light on your course of action this past summer, but several of you didn't listen and our school district is mired in a mess that possibly could have been avoided. However, in several ways things are even worse than I

032had predicted. Watching the last school board meeting, for the first time since I took a teaching position in Brainerd, I believe I witnessed the school board and admin attempting to influence contract negotiations publicly at a school board meeting. Whether or not it meets the legal threshold for bargaining in public or an unfair labor practice will be resolved. Regardless, it was a thinly veiled attempt to sway public opinion as to the district's position in a mediation process that is required to be closed. Any attempt by a person in a position of power to influence employees or the public regarding closed contract mediation is at best a horrible mistake and at worst extremely unethical. The only contact regarding mediation between the district and employees should be through the mediation process itself. Second, there is also an ongoing

033attempt, in my opinion, to vil- villainize our school district's Employees who've been asked to do more with less for more than 25 years. They didn't go into public education to get rich. On several occasions in the past, these hardworking employees traded salary for benefits in bargaining. And now somehow that's not acceptable. Regarding PTO, that was brought to the bargaining table by administration, not employees. It seems to be totally unfair to me to villainize employees for the actions of previous administrations supported and or advanced. The aforementioned actions are not examples of honorable discourse in the workplace. More than 80% of Minnesota school districts report shortages of licensed teachers and substitutes. The mantra in teacher training programs for decades has been, you won't get rich, but you can count on good benefits. Good luck finding teachers to

034replace those who will retire or move elsewhere if leadership is going to continue to disrespect [clears throat] employees unethically. Maybe instead attention could be given to traditional public data based on historic timelines in the district. Aren't the school district financial reports such as the audit later than is typical? Thank you. All right, we will move on to the approval of minutes. We've have three meetings worth of minutes there to approve. We'll look for a motion. I'll make a motion. I'll second. We've got a motion by Director Edman and a second by Director Brekken. Any discussion? If not, we'll do a roll call vote, please. Sarah Spear? Yes. John Ward? Yes. Brekken? Yes. DJ Donley? Yes. Stephanie Edman? Yes. Mandy Heitman? Yes. Thank you, Kelly. We'll move on to the consent calendar. So, how's that work?

035Do we going to um I'd like to pull a few things out of it. Yep. So, let's pull the spending deal for the uh BHF roof replacement down to the Riverside H-vac. Okay. And then um policy 602 and 712. And so, where do they go? Do they go in new business? Yep, we'll put them at the end of new business. So, um would you like to have the replacements and the H-vac as one item or separate? They can be one item. >> Okay, that's as one item and then we'll take 602 and 712 individually. So, is the reason just because we want some discussion on those specific items? >> Yeah, I think so. Okay. Which we can we could do it right away if you want. You're pulling Harrison, too? I think we should pull

036all three of the spending things. Yeah, I just I didn't hear anything about Harrison, that's all. That's why I'm asking. Inquiring only. Okay, can you tell me which ones we're pulling again? You got the Harrison, BHS, uh two of them and Riverside. There's four different uh roof replacement, okay. >> [clears throat] >> We're pulling them, but we're going to discuss them as as their own individual We'll approve them individually. Okay, so I have three. There's four. There's four. What's the fourth one? Well, the BHS one is BHS is there's two contracts within BHS. Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. See, BHS got Oh, one and two. Okay. Yeah, okay. Got it. Thank you. And then policies numbers 602 and 712. >> Okay. That makes sense. Okay. So, that will be item five and seven under new

037business. All right. All right. >> So, I'll make a motion to approve the rest. Got a motion by Director Donley. I'll second it. I think by Director Edman. Any further discussion? Madam Chair. Yes. Uh you know, we always look at the donor kind of deal or I do anyhow and and I'm appreciative of everybody that gives gives to our kids. And this month in particular, members board members and Brainerd Sports Boosters and the Baxter PTO have significant giving this this month and so we're appreciative of all people that give, but when we get large ones like that, I like to I like to call them out separately and thank thank them individually. So, just wanted to make that comment. Thank you. Thanks for bringing that up. All right, if there's no further discussion, we'll look

038for a roll call vote, please. John Ward? Yes. Yes. DJ Donley? Yes. Stephanie Edman? Yes. Mandy Heitman? Yes. Sarah Spear? Yes. We'll move on to under old business for action, we have the nomination and election of officers for this year. We'll look for nominations for chairperson. >> [snorts] >> I'm going to nominate Sarah Spear to be the chairperson. Um I'm going to nominate um DJ Donley for chair. Any further nominations? >> Madam Chair. Yes. Madam Go ahead, Madam Chair. I was just going to call call for the third time for nominations just to Yep. Yep. Any further nominations? All right. We have >> Madam Chair. Yes, Director Ward. So, um you know, I to me this is a coming in with a new superintendent and some you know, new folks and um I want to

039be able to find out uh I want to ask some questions of each nominee. Um and I don't when when can I do that prior to a vote? Well, we're just about to take a vote. So, this would be the best time. Okay. Um I think it's imperative uh that um our new chair our chairperson um strongly support an operating levy. So, I'd like each each nominee to um um tell how they feel about an operating levy uh moving forward and the support they'll have for it. You want to go first or me to? Go ahead. Well, John, it's a loaded question. You dirty dog. >> [laughter] >> Um Sorry, I don't feel it's loaded, but okay. Here's the deal. Imagine that. Um here's what I think about the operating levy. I think that there's

040a lot of stuff we need to clean up around here. And um it's not an operating It would be an operating levy one day, yeah. Um and if we got that done and kind of got our >> [sighs and gasps] >> our housekeeping done in the Brainerd school district and we could go out and go for an operating levy that we could be proud of that would improve the situation and class sizes and EAs and curriculum where we could start to get back to the winning ways of the Brainerd school district that I enjoyed going to school here and so did my children and my parents. Um I'd be all about getting on board with a um operating levy, but the way things are today, I would uh I'd have to say we have a

041little more work to do. So, I guess that's about as good as I can give you. Thank you. I Director Ward, I would say my support is not conditional. I think that education is underfunded from the federal to the state all the way down and if we have an opportunity to change that, it's a no-brainer to me. I think um there's a lot we could do in our education system here locally. It we don't need to struggle the way that we do if we were to fund education the way we fund lots of other things in this country, in the state, in in this district. And it's a no-brainer for me. Thank you. Especially Madam Chair, I have one that serves on a public school board. I am in favor of everything we can win

042for a school. And I would also say to Director Donley's point, yes, we do need to be very fiscally responsible and it's a both and, it's not one or the other. Madam Chair, I have a follow-up question for each of you. And it's in my opinion DJ, I'm sorry you feel it's a little they're loaded questions, but they're they're not. They're very important to me and to a lot of other people in this district. So, my question to both DJ and and Sarah would be what would be your how would you handle working with a new superintendent with our new superintendent and as a board chair on issues that you know will be contentious with the school board members. Can I start? Sure. I don't understand the question. >> Um I think what you're asking

043is would we still put it on the agenda if it was a if it was contentious? Am I reading that right, Director Ward? I'm talking about your relationship, not an agenda item, not an agenda situation. I'm talking about um your leadership your leadership as a as the chair of the board um with um knowing the board might not uh agree with um issues that the superintendent um wants to uh um do or project. Your relationship your relationship with the superintendent. Are you you know, are you going to be a rubber stamp or are you going to stand up for um you know, what what you think? That is a loaded question. >> And that might be a loaded question to you, Director Ward. >> [laughter] >> I you know what I'm going to do? I'm

044going to stand up for what I think. Um I do think though that if a super you're going to have to support the superintendent if the superintendent wants something on the agenda, I don't see how you stop them. Um I think it should go on the agenda and we should all talk about it. Uh I don't I don't think that I don't think that being the chairman of is like a uh a way to stifle uh other opinions that aren't yours. I mean, I wouldn't I don't think that's part of the job. I wish it was, but >> [laughter] >> I'm just kidding. The other The other thing I would say is because I agree with you DJ that um the board has one uh one employee and that's the superintendent and our job as

045a board is to make sure he's successful, has what he needs, and trust his recommendations and expertise. I've always heard um trust and validate and I I think that's fair and I would ask that whoever is in the superintendent position would do the same of the board. Um so I think it it has if it's successful, it has to be there has to be trust and support um that there's going to be transparency and honesty in that situation. Uh thank you both. I appreciate the fact that you're both willing to step up and be leadership for the board and represent the board. Um I'm not sure why you want to do that, but thank you for doing it. >> [laughter] >> Cannot be the Any further discussion? >> [sighs] >> All right, so we've got

046two nominations for um the position of chair. We'll take a roll call. Please name the person you would like to see in that position as your answer to roll call, please. Michelle Brekken. Sara Speer. DJ Donley. DJ. Stephanie Utterman. DJ. Mandy Heitman. Director Donley. Sara Speer. Sara. John Ward. Sara. We are tied again. Are tied again. We will see you all next month um for the >> think we can do that. >> same discussion. I don't think we can keep putting this off. We can. It's supposed to be done in January. All right, we will move on to new business for action. We've got the approval of uh literacy resource as presented by Dr. Melissa Cornea, Guy Kelm, and Blake Allhome. Welcome. Thank you for joining us. Be patient. Blake, do you want this one?

047Hi all, thank you for having us this evening. Um I first want to start with just recognizing how much each of you gives to Brainerd Public Schools and we're excited to sit in front of you as a partner for our warriors um and and move K-4 literacy forward towards uh how we can best serve our warriors. I sit beside you or sitting beside me are my colleagues. I'm Guy Kelm. I teach second grade at Harrison. Blake Allhome, [clears throat] second grade at Baxter. And I'm Melissa Cornea, K-12 literacy and humanities coordinator. Um we come to you on behalf of two different teams, the steering team. They [clears throat] were an integral part of our journey here. So what we're going to bring to you is our recommendation for the K-4 resource for tier one literacy.

048So every kid every day across tier one for K-4 literacy. The steering team is the team that truly led uh the decision-making based on teacher input. So the steering team was seven teachers from five of our elementaries including special education, every grade level represented, two elementary principals, the director of teaching and learning, executive director, and myself. This K-4 literacy task force started this summer. Uh started with 13 teachers across all actually K-6 um and then it grew this fall to 28 teachers across all elementary schools and all it down to two. Again, just kind of going through that thorough process of is it aligned to Minnesota grade level benchmarks? Is it aligned to structured literacy, what we know is best instruction? Does it align to our needs? Um our needs were K-4 vertical alignment so

049that there aren't discrepancies as students move to different grades. We also wanted comprehensive. So the idea of reading and writing, they're not siloed or phonics and comprehension, they're not siloed, but instead the literacy block feels like a cohesive literacy experience. From there, we narrowed it down to the two. The two then we put back in front of our teachers. So we gave them samples of both. We gave them online access to both. Um we then had grade level conversations so they came together for example as a second grade on February 13th, that PD day, and every teacher had the opportunity to provide input on those two. That then went back to the steering team. The steering team using their input, using all of the hours of work before that, were able to come to consensus

050on the resource that you see below there emerge. Emerge was resoundingly the resource that all teachers weighed in and saw this meets the need for my grade level. This meets grade level benchmarks. This meets structured literacy. Um the hope then is upon your approval, we can start moving into professional development that helps us move into implementation for next year. So going to briefly talk about Emerge um and three of the highlights based on the needs that were important to our teachers. So, what I'll get into next is the idea of structured literacy and why we're doing this. So, this is the road map of what we learned from the science of reading and we learned that structured literacy is best practice. And when you think of this resource, you think of the the who. Um

051this is guaranteeing that no matter what tier you're in, tier one, tier two, or tier three, that you're getting the same high-quality instruction. If you look at the what side on the left there, that those are the components of structured literacy. And when we looked at our curriculum, we looked for that existing in Emerge. When you look over at the how, that is how are the teachers delivering that information. Um >> [snorts] >> So, yeah, like when we were selecting this resource, we used this structured literacy diagram to determine if we felt Emerge held up strong and we feel that way. Uh it con- it contains all the principles of literacy and it is also very teacher-friendly and student-engaging. And we feel strongly that it is doing right by kids and is best practice when

052we look at the structured literacy components. And then looking a little closer to the curriculum, you'll see how the um curriculum goes from K to 4. If you look at the first box on the left, K1, you'll notice more foundational skills, more time for foundational skills, building of comprehension skills, then some group focus. And as you see 2-5, it branches off away from foundational skills because about that that time they should have most of those in place. And those would only come into play if they needed more work in a smaller study group. And so, this curriculum really addresses the different ways students learn and expectations at each grade level. The dashboard on the right shows something that we were pretty impressed with is that it we're getting real-time data. So, if you're doing an

053assessment or a quick intervention, you can plug that right into the computer and it gives you groupings, it gives you things that you should be doing next time with this group or with an individual, which we don't have right now and most of the curriculums didn't show that. So, that's a tool that I know we're going to use a lot just to guide our instruction. So, structured literacy aligned to structured literacy, it's teacher-friendly, and then we know that it's all about our students. So, it is highly engaging for our students. Um every student, that's the key with structured literacy, is how are we making sure that every student is engaged in the learning right then and there. But then the other key part is as students are actively engaged, how do we as teachers monitor

054that learning and give immediate feedback or immediately correct course based on our assessing real-time. And so, one of the tools that will be used, and I just want to show the difference between K to 4 is are these response boards. You meet when your whole group up on the rug or at your desks, and you have the sound box for K, working into word structure down here, whereas it goes into second, third, more into syllable boxes, but then you'll notice on the fourth grade one, it's mainly about sentence structure and writing paragraphs, things like that, so there's more room for that. On the back, we start with the basic handwriting with the handmanship there and then cursive >> [cough] >> second on up for cursive. So, it covers and the handwriting is also included in

055the curriculum, which has not usually been something that we've seen. We also had to do an outside support for that. So, it's nice that it's embedded right with everything. We don't have to grab another tool to say, "Oh, now I've got to do this." It's embedded and again, these are quick response boards so that if we're teaching, you have them show the boards, see who's struggling, who's getting it, and you might keep a few kids back on the rug, let those go work, and you're like, "Hey, let's work on this again." It's a quick way to see instead of always doing a paper-pencil assessment and going, "Well, I'll get that later." It's right now in the moment of teaching. Another piece of that is you have the student companion. So, every student will get this

056for each unit. If you look up on the screen, there's some pictures of examples of what each page looks like. There's things for decodables, so when we're working on phonics skills, there's things for that. And when we go to that knowledge building and building that comprehension piece, they're responding to questions, they're responding they're doing writing responses to questions, and then they're building their writing skills in there as well. I think as educators, what excites us the most about this is the student application piece. When we think about student engaging engagement, kids need to be doing things when we're instructing. You think of that we go, where I'm instructing, they're also applying their learning right then and there instead of doing it independently, and that's where we kind of miss some things, but if they're actively

057participating in the instruction when we're giving it, we can kind of like we said, we can go back back, fix things right then and there. And when kids are participating in their learning, they're picking it up much more effectively if that makes sense. So, the student application piece in these student companions really excites us because it requires kids to actively learn while they're learning from us as well. You can see that difference too of the kinder compared to second compared to fourth. So again, that what we needed was we needed something that although it could be one resource that was vertically aligned, it was ultimately developmentally appropriate. How do we do best by our kindergarteners? How do we do best by our fourth graders and every year in between? Um ultimately, we come back to

058this quote again and again from Dr. Louisa Moats. Uh she's an expert in literacy. Uh the different For example, OLA, there was OLA, but then there were two other uh programs we could have gone with. She's the author of one of the other programs, Letters. And for her to say that it is not about programs, it is about our teachers um again and again, we are here to promote and to request that Emerge be adopted as our K-4 literacy. Um and the power is the people, that our teachers, uh the work that they put into this. I calculated it, it's almost 1,700 hours, not including OLA, um that this team of educators have put into this work. And ultimately, it is the teachers who also stand >> [cough and clears throat] >> behind us that

059we are excited to continue to champion and give them the resource that's teacher-friendly, student-engaging, and aligned to structured literacy. So, we want to open it up to questions now. Um well, I just want to say thank you for doing all this. Um so, with Emerge, what kind of results have they had? Has other school districts previously had when they've gone to this curriculum? So, it is a publication date, I believe is 2027. So, it's in the midst of different like piloting and those types of moves. It's a brand new program that's coming out. Is that what you're saying? It's brand new. So, it's from McGraw Hill. McGraw Hill was Wonders before that. So, if you look at the research of Wonders, um you can go to EdReports, you can go to the Reading League, uh

060third-party reports that you're going to see that they had a track record of impact. What we know with structured literacy is structured liter- or sorry, with Emerge, it's not even a a revamp, they truly started from structured literacy. So, they didn't start from Wonders, they started from structured literacy and built from there. So, that idea of what we did is we looked at everything Wonders and we held everything Wonders up to what we saw in Emerge and checked for >> [clears throat] >> does it have all the good it's supposed to have from Wonders and does it have those pieces that we know through OLA it should have. Thank you. Madam Chair. Yes, Director Ward. So, um um Melissa Guyan Blake, thank you for your uh hard work. Just like uh Director Edelman said, um

061I understand there was a team of 28 that put in about 1,700 hours. And um I like the I really like to see at the all grades example, but at uh you know, from the uh phonetic phonetic kind of um we've always been a lot of us have been talking about improving our phonetics, you know, a system within our reading. So, number one, um this this really does improve phonetic our reading phonetic programming, correct? Yes, it does. So, according to the framework and benchmark from the state standards and the training we had, the foundational skills we've worked on a lot over the past years. And before this, curriculums weren't really putting that in as much. They had steered away from it. But we knew what such a need we had, so we had to look

062at that in every resource. So, you'll notice that the foundational skills are quite strong for every grade level and it really grows well through K-4. Yes. And maybe to >> Thank you. Maybe to kind of make sure everyone's on the same page there. I don't know if it's in our second grade book, um but Yep, here I see it. So, um what I think of with what Director Ward is saying is the idea of words are made of sounds, right? And so, those sounds then are represented by letters, and that's the work that our especially K1, that's the work that they are trying to figure out is they know a cat, right? And they they can see a cat, then they know the word cat, but now they need to figure out c- at, right?

063And they have to start to associate that with sounds. So, that idea of you have um the the phonics and you have phonemic awareness. This is a second grade book. Um by second grade, they shouldn't uh what research shows is that they shouldn't need solely instruction on sounds. They should be moving into more complex spelling patterns, but it's built in here in case that teacher needs to tap into it. We also use it at the start of a phonics lesson of um so, for example, change need the e to Oh, man. It's probably a bad example. Um that was a bad example, but that's an example of right? >> [laughter] >> Change e to er. THERE YOU PERFECT, RIGHT? >> [laughter] >> AND SO, you you have that idea of getting even second graders to

064manipulate sounds, but then they're going to start to tap into e e versus e r, but even i r can sound can sound like nerd, right? Um and so, that was something that was important to us was that any resource, if it's going to be a K-4 resource, it had to help hold up on that foundational level for our kinder first second grade. One Madam Chair, one one more question. Um I know that the 28 uh team members had a consensus on this on uh this selection. Um the other multiple uh uh staff that we have, um do you have any kind of feedback from the other staff um in the district as far as this programming? So, what we did was when we when we brought the resource out to teachers, they had a

065feedback form that they could fill out. So, every teacher had the opportunity to have their voice heard, and then what we did as a group of 28 was or as the steering team, sorry, as the steering team, we looked at that feedback and saw a consensus towards a merge as well. So, even though they weren't a group of the 28, all teachers' voices were heard at some point to a different degree, but at some point every elementary teacher's voice was heard. So, we heard from >> Thank you. We heard from every grade level team across all six elementaries. Uh once we figured out who was there on February 13th, um the form was anonymous, but we were able to say like, yep, everyone is represented here. Um when we looked at the feedback, it was

066glaring that with the merge, they could name structured literacy, that evidence-based practice, they could name it more easily, they could talk about it for their grade level, um and and speak to it very clearly with the merge. Thank you. So, the level of support seemed to be very strong, which is which is very important as well. Thank you. I'll make a motion to approve it. Um okay. Second. All right, we've got a motion by Director Donahue and a second by Director Ward. Any [clears throat] further discussion? Madam Chair. Yes. I'm so impressed with you guys and the work that you put in. Unbelievable. And it came from the ground up. Not top-down. Teachers were listened to. They're the ones that are going to do the work. And man, you guys put in a lot of

067work. I mean, the presentation that you gave at DAC and just the stuff, I mean, this is so incredibly important. And you took the time. And you got people involved. Um Good job. >> [clears throat] >> Very good job. All three of you and getting everyone involved, it's probably wasn't easy sometimes. And thank you. Yes. Thank you very much. So, I love that they're getting a paper book, and I love that they're going to start learning cuz um writing and reading goes hand in hand. So, thank you very much. Thank you for evaluating this and finding the best tool for us. And I'm so glad that there are books and curriculum out there like this that have done the hard work of getting to it right away so that there are good resources for us.

068So, this is fantastic. When will the teachers get started? Will it be in the fall or maybe sooner? You all saying You all saying yes has I have a meeting with Christina on Thursday uh and we have our next in-service day is April 6th. Um so, our hope is uh with a yes from all of you that we can get teachers wrapping their brains around it as soon as possible. Great. Wait, I think Do you don't you have something else to say about the cost of this curriculum? >> It came in under budget. >> Yes. >> [laughter] >> That's good. So, uh yes, we did not want to put anything in front of our teachers that we could could not move forward. Um and luckily, both happened that this this is the best of the

069best. This is what our students need um and it is under budget. >> [laughter] >> Awesome. Thanks, you guys. Yeah. All right, we've got a motion on the table. There's no further discussion. We'll do a roll call vote. Director Donahue. Yes. Stephanie Edelman. Yes. Andy Hedman. Absolutely, yes. Sarah Speer. Yes. John Ward. 120% yes. Michelle Baken. 130% yes. >> [laughter] >> Thank you, Donahue. Thank you, guys. >> [applause] >> We have the approval of the resolution for the American Indian Parent Advisory Committee. Um vote on non-concurrence, our response as a school board and Superintendent Grant has that for us tonight. >> Thank you. The Brainerd Public School Board of Education proposes the following in response to the American Indian Parent Advisory Committee in its board of non-concurrence. So, to the American Advisory Committee APAC members,

070in response to the APAC recommendations, we offer the following. Recommendation number one was, how many times throughout the year is student attendance information provided by race or ethnicity? Our response, student attendance is monitored throughout the school year. Regardless of race or ethnicity, data collection is stored in the Skyward student database. Depending how families register their children, the district cannot request or ask about ethnicity or race. There are three ways parents, guardians, or students typically identify their indigenous identity. Ethnic and racial demographic form, Aide Title VI ED 506 Indian Student Eligibility Certification Form, and the Johnson-O'Malley Program Certification Form. Thus, when the Minnesota Department of Education requests student data, the district reports the information according to the registration process. Data reflecting race or ethnicity is reported to MDE through the MARSS Reporting Module. Recommendation number two,

071how is Indigenous Americans' discipline tracked? >> [clears throat] >> Our response, tracking of all student discipline is kept in the Skyward database. Depending on the registration process completed by parents, guardians, tracking discipline by race or ethnicity can only be accomplished by the registration process. All of this data is reported to MDE through the MARSS program. Recommendation number three, does the district and school staff attend and support local community in the Indigenous Community Organizations? Response, the district does not have requirements for employees to attend local events, local community events, or those even sponsored by the Indigenous Community. The district does encourage its employees to be active within the community, which could be inclusive of the Indigenous Community. A great many employees are quite active in the communities. And recommendation number four, does the district monitor or

072seek Indigenous American student satisfaction readings of the schools? Our response is, student satisfaction surveys monitoring is managed in different surveys throughout the school year. Student satisfaction is not scientific in determining racial or ethnicity satisfaction if students are not asked to identify their race or ethnicity. Grade level and gender identification is typically requested of students in surveys. The only survey that would seek specific identification would be the Minnesota Student Survey, which is provided as an opt-in or opt-out every 3 years for specific grade levels. That data is then reported back to school districts in the following fall. Thank you. >> [clears throat] >> All right, we'll look for a motion to approve the resolution. I'll make it. Second. Got a motion by Director Edelman, a second by Director Ward. Any further discussion? If not, we'll do

073a roll call vote, please. Stephanie Edelman. Yes. Andy Hedman. Yes. Sarah Speer. Yes. John Ward. Yes. Michelle Baken. Yes. Did you get all of that? Yes. I'm very sleepy. Thank you. All right, we will move to the additions that were added to the agenda. Number one, a discussion on recruitment and >> [clears throat] >> retention of staff. So, thank you board members for agreeing to just talk about this for right now. Um I want to give you some factual information. Uh annually, 8% of our educators 8% of our educators in the United States leave the profession. Uh that's 270,000 teachers or staff or every year. And by the way, I'm talking about all staff. I'm not talking about just educators. Um There the last 10 years, there's been some of the highest turnover in uh

074education that we have ever had. In the next 10 years, 5 to 10 years, there looks to be another 35 to 50% uh of teachers and and staff, educational staff, that are saying, um I can't do this anymore. Um less than 20% of the people leaving are due to retirement. So, that means the people That That means 80% of the people that are leaving is due to something else. So, recruitment and retention, in my opinion, um just like we talk about losing students, is critical. It's critical. And I think that um and you know, we we in ISD 181, um you know, have have lost staff both through retirement and through other reasons. Um and I think it's about time that we address it and do what along with our students decline, um as uh

075um my my colleagues have so eloquently pointed out almost every meeting. Um I think it's time that we also talked about what recruitment and retention of um staff could and should look like. Um so, I would like to see, Madam Chair and colleagues, um some type of an ad hoc committee. By the way, I had an opportunity to uh down here in Florida, down uh talked to a first grade teacher out of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. And um this young lady was uh a just a dynamic young lady, bubbly, and you know, just the kind of elementary teacher that you'd love to have in your district. She's been doing it for 10 years in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Uh she said her first 5 years were wonderful. Were were just great. Uh things were awesome. She had

076just was loving the profession. Uh the last 5 years, not so much. Um we've heard that tonight in our public comments also, my colleagues. We heard from uh a number of people that came to the the podium tonight that talked about recruitment and retention um of educators and all staff, educational staff. So, Madam Chair, I would like to propose that uh either at a workshop or even tonight, that we set up an ad hoc committee to um study and and come up with some um ideas, some suggestions, some whatever, on uh on um retention, recruitment and retention of our staff. And by the way, the other thing that I think is very, very important, and I'm glad to see so many people in the audience tonight in a variety of uh in a variety of

077um venues, a variety of feelings, a variety of uh interests. This has to be a cooperative cooperative um dialogue with uh with with management and labor. Period. And we as a community need to um have that dialogue as well. So, I'm not putting this on anybody, it's on all of us. And so, um if I can, Madam Chair, I'd like to uh I'm not sure how we would set up an ad hoc committee, but I'd like to at least somehow start studying it and maybe even through a work session. So, um let let's let's just discuss it for a minute or whatever. I'll stop for now and listen to you guys. I'd like to put it in a workshop. I think that makes sense. I'm I'm wondering, um Director Ward, maybe either you or maybe

078somebody else, one of our colleagues, wants to bring forward some best practices they've seen from other districts or other districts that are doing similar kind of work that we don't need to recreate the wheel. Um if there's a successful program or committee like this elsewhere, maybe bring that Is Jason here? to workshop. Yep. He's back there. Well, I'll tell you what I'd like to see. So, when I went to school board training with MSBA, they they broke us up in these groups, and I was with the retired athletic director of Cambridge and was the football coach forever. And he told us that when he went to Ohio State, that uh I think it was 20 4% of people that went to college in 1976 went to school to be a teacher. Might have been 21%.

079I could be off. But now it's down to 4%. And so, the questions I have, which John, you're you're on it, um but the question is is that I don't I'm not sure we need a committee as much as cuz we are the committee. Like if we put this on our workshops, but why? Why are people leaving the profession? You know, um Tim uh said it right tonight. Nobody went to be a teacher to be the richest person in the county. Everybody knew what they were signing up for, but it used to be honorable. They had some power. Administration backed people up. Parents didn't have access to go uh attack these teachers. The stories I've heard, no one was getting spit at, swore at. There were consequences for actions. And somehow, I think we've drifted

080off course, and maybe I'm completely wrong, but I would think as big of a group of people as teachers are, there's been studies done on this. There's There's There's There's data out there that's going to tell us why people don't want to be teachers and why they're leaving the profession. You know, and some of them, of course, don't forget when you talk about your 8%. Some of them might have just moved, you know. Um it's not always that they're leaving the profession, but they're leaving us. So, there's a little bit of floating around, but I I think that you could find it. You know, it's a pretty good resource that that um that I've been paying attention to is that SB school board SBA EAE AEE Uh they got some pretty interesting stuff, like the

08174. I've sent you some articles out of there, John. Um they're kind of a a political thing just about school boards and education and what's going on, and and it's fun to see this curriculum come out, and I think that maybe the next step is to kind of Uh if you if you watch how people how things go, is it's like we're too far this way, so then it seems like the pendulum swings and you end up too far the other way. And maybe if it came back to the middle, kind of like the reading, you know, we went from all phonics to everybody's the same to no phonics, and now we're kind of coming back to the middle. Maybe it's the same thing with behavior and pay and respect um for these educators cuz

082from what I've heard, it's not a not the funnest thing anymore. >> [cough] [clears throat] >> Come into our schools and see what it's like. >> Yeah. I've been in them. Really? When? Who? Me? Um let's anybody. Sorry, you guys. No, you're in a public meeting right now. Um DJ, I Madam Oh, go ahead, Randy. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Randy. I was a no vote on this, and let me explain why. It has nothing to do with recruitment and retention. There aren't consequences for behavior. You're never going to be able to recruit and retain teachers. Simple. I mean, it's this is not rocket science. Now, when I went to school, and I'm Yeah, it was about a million years ago. But when I got in trouble at school, I didn't have to worry about what

083I got trouble in school for. I was worried about what was going to happen when I got home. Every A lot of things have changed. But if we don't start backing the teachers and supporting them, you we can have all the recruitment and retention plans we want. It's not going I don't think it's going to Hopefully, it would make some difference, but I I don't think it will because it is an honorable profession, and it should be returned to that. And consequences have kind of gone by the wayside. >> [clears throat] >> I mean, I don't know. I'd probably be in jail if I was a teacher. I would, too. I'm just being honest with you. Teachers, you you guys have so much pay I mean, I was at Baxter for opening day, and some

084of those kids were just mortified for their first day at school. And the way the staff at Baxter handled those young kids, unbelievable. And I also think this kind of lends itself kind of towards a management issue where the board tries to stay out of management issues, but I think we can cross over in this case and talk a little bit about management, but it's got I mean, the board, we're the furthest ones away from the issues that happen in the classroom. And what we need, what we need, is we need teachers to tell us the honest truth without retribution. What's going on? What can help? What can we do? >> [snorts] >> That's where I'm at with this whole issue. Now, we already have a committee. We have a personnel committee. I don't know,

085John, if we need another committee, but I certainly think well, definitely let's talk about it in a workshop. And let's talk about it in personnel committee as well. So, thank you for bringing it up. Um and it needs to be addressed. There's no question about it. Thank you, >> Well, I appreciate both Madam Chair, I appreciate both uh Randy and DJ's comments. Uh I agree with them. Um the the profession, just like it has been said, need needs to have uh the respect, the admiration, and promoting, and honoring, appreciation, support brought back to them. And that's my That's why I'm suggesting that, you know, somehow we form a committee, or we do it in a personnel committee, or whatever, Randy. I agree with you and DJ also on that. Um but DJ, you said, "We

086are the committee." My idea of a committee is not the six of us. My idea of a committee is some educators, some TAs, some administration, some board, some community people, some students. That's the idea of my ad hoc committee. Just like you said, Randy, uh get get back feedback and suggestions from those that are boots on the ground. And um I'm all for let's let's continue this dialogue in a work session, and and see what we can do with it. Here's the question, John. And maybe it's a question for Jason. And Jason, you don't need to come up here, but um I'll give you an analogy. Call up a travel agent. Some of you aren't old enough to know what a travel agent is. We used to have these people that actually got you airplane

087tickets. >> [laughter] >> Call up your travel agent and tell them you want a ticket to Dallas. What's the first thing they're going to ask you? Where are you? And you just tell them, "I don't know where I am. Just get me a ticket to Dallas." And they're going to say, "Where are you?" And so, where we've got to start, John, with what you're talking about is we need to know where we are. And Jason, I got to imagine there's information out there. You know, I'm just a dumb car salesman, but we know that you think it takes too long to buy a car. I can read all these articles all day long. It's what I do. It's like, "Why is this happening? Why are people not coming to our service? How can we get

088more people to come to us?" Right? And it's got to be the same thing in education as big a business as it is. There's got to be studies that have been done at this college or that college, or people We don't need to set up our own little committee. You know, what what It's It's amazing. If you saw why people do things, why they buy, why they leave their jobs, it from what your brain would tell you to what it really is are so far apart. Um I study all this stuff. We're survey nuts in my world, this retail world. And so, anyways, it's nice to know where you are to try to figure out You know where you want to end up, but if you don't know where to start, you're kind of just

089treading water. So, I think we should really dig in and try to find some stuff. I'll try to dig around a little bit and see if I can find something, too. Why people are leaving. Good stuff. Can we have a Can we just have an an part of the part of one of you maybe both you talked about, you know, one of the situations is and and we heard that at the podium tonight, too. Um the environment and behavior problems within the classroom setting and the size of the classroom setting. We heard that tonight, also, and that's significant. And can we just agree that we will continue this discussion in work sessions later on? I'm fine with that. Yeah. Yeah. Are you good with them, Michelle? Yes. Yes, I am. Absolutely. Well, um I really

090>> Um I'm just going to say one more thing. So, I have a girlfriend whose son is going to St. Thomas. He started in the class of 24. That's all they had in their class for teachers. They're down to 12. They went and did student teaching around the Minneapolis area. It was awful. They were getting yelled at, swore at. She goes, "Half the kids left." And her son is now going to be a firefighter, not a teacher. Really? Yes. So, now St. Thomas is down to 12. All right. So, yeah. Let's go legislative. Yep. All right. So, our next work session, I believe, is April 8th. So, we'll put that up or our work session. >> Our work session, whatever you want. Yeah. We'll put that as an agenda item. Retreat. Retreat. Thank you. Thank

091you. Party. Thank you. All right. The next item was uh legislative action discussion. And thank you for allowing me to bring this up as well. Uh this is a a bonding year. It's a short short session. Uh the session is done on May 18th. And the bill deadlines are coming up. Uh Superintendent Grant, thank you for um your very good idea of trying to get uh construction um money moved into the general fund money, which takes legislative action and the support of the local school board. Um And I I I visited today with uh the reviser's office, Don Don Dapple. And I know that um our our our representative has said that um he was going to get that jacketed and and introduced, but it hasn't been yet. So, um Superintendent Grant, if you could

092communicate and see where that is, that would be great. But I wanted to talk to not only just us as board members, or the administration, or educators, but all of all of the community. Um you know, and we've heard tonight about um the education field in general. People As as Director Edman said, people are kids aren't going into it. And you know, um for a number of reasons. And we have discipline problems. And we have class size You know, we have got a lot of problems. But I believe that we can right the ship. I really do believe that we can right the ship. And but it takes advocacy. It takes lobbying. It takes communicating. It takes um talking to our uh leadership in the legislature um to ask for certain things. You know, I

093want to make sure that um I hope Teresa's there because Teresa, as we put this in the as you maybe put this in the paper, I you know, I'm guessing that some of the people don't even know what Senate district we are in. Um we're in Senate District 6 and we're in House District 6A and 6B. And um you know, I'm guessing that people don't even know how to email our legislative folks in in the house. It's It's It'd be like rep.john.ward You can look them up, John. minn.gov. Yeah, I know. You can Google it, right? I understand that. But I'm saying I I I understand, DJ. The policy deadline is coming up on March 27th. The finance deadline is coming up on April 17th. And there's two There's there's a two two bills that

094I wanted besides the the construction funds, Superintendent Grant. There's also the seasonal rec bill, which has a lot of support this year, you guys. And in the Senate, it has not as much support. I was on MREA, Minnesota Rural Education Association, legislative update this morning. And there's not as much support for that. That will really help in a rural Greater Minnesota operating levy request. And so, I'm going to encourage and ask, you know, everybody in in the community, not only in Brainerd and Baxter, but statewide, to get involved and to to reach out to their legislators and ask for support on the house file for the seasonal rec is HF1161. And yeah, DJ, you can look that up, but I bet you didn't know it, for crying out loud. Um and the Senate file The

095Senate file is 1197. And I'm not I'm just kidding you, DJ, but it's important. This stuff is important, folks, that we advocate and lobby. Our kids are dependent on us. Our kids are dependent on us, just like the previous generations have depended you know, given to their kids as well. So, Madam Chair, thank you for allowing me to rant and rave a little bit, but the session's uh the session is short, and we need to get done what we can get done. So, thank you. I do have a response. John, are you listening? Okay, today Okay. >> Today, Representative Heitzman told me that file House File Number 4306 was read for the first time, which is for the District 181 fund transfer. And it was >> Awesome. Thank you. And it was referred to the

096Committee on Education Finance. That's wonderful. Did you all get that? House File 4306. >> [laughter] >> Write it down. Email Email them and ask for their support. House File 4306. Let's go. Get it done. >> [snorts] >> Thank you, Superintendent Grant. >> [sighs] >> All right. Thank you, Director Ward. I'm calm Randy, I'm I'm staying calm, Randy. >> [laughter] >> Not bad, John. Good job, buddy. All right. Thank you. We're going to move on to what is now number five on our new business for action, and that is stuff that we took off the consent calendar. >> So, I'd like to make a motion. Is this how the Is Is this how we should do this? We I'd like to make a motion that we accept this policy as it's written, except I think we

097should get rid of in uh The Oh, wait What 712? 712 is the next one. We're We're doing the HVAC first. Oh, let's do the HVAC then. Sorry about that. Hot dog. I didn't put the HVAC on there. All right, so we've got the Harrison roof replacement, the [clears throat] BHS A-wing ballasted roof, and the BHS old white coated EPDM EPDM roof, and the Riverside HVAC project. Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity to come here and discuss the projects. What questions can I answer? Well, for me, Jeff, the biggest thing was is just bringing this out into the public. >> Sure. And saying that these dollars aren't coming from general revenues. They're coming from long-term maintenance. And uh so it's not going to affect anything as far as the general revenue is concerned. >> Correct.

098For our school district. Yep. Every project we do that's repair, replacement, all comes from the long-term facilities maintenance budget. And we're able to uh take care of roofing projects, uh HVAC projects that didn't get taken care of during the referendum. So, we're very lucky to have the the funding to do it. That's right. I think that um you know, I kind of asked for these people, Jeff, not cuz I'm trying to push your chops, but I do think that this is 100 Well, this is 1 million 160,000 bucks for all these four projects. And I think that the public deserves to know how we're paying for it. Especially like John wants to get a referendum through. Guys like me just read this stuff and are like, "They just spend money like it's going out of

099style." Right? How are they supposed to know that you're spending this LTFM money spend it or lose it? And then I don't think it would hurt when you start to do the projects like the high schools or Riverside is 718 grand that you explain to us that the HVAC is shot and it was put in in in 1998 and it's rally as they've been limping it along for the last 5 years and you know what I'm saying? Just kind of sell it a little bit so that I just don't feel like and you know, Peter, Sarah That's one of the reasons I want to be the chairman, is I don't think that should be a um consent agenda item. Consent agendas are the stuff that you have every single meeting that are simple deals. And

100I've learned in this week or last week that um the county board does this kind of stuff. Puts all this spending in their consent agenda. But I think a consent agenda is like it's the checkbook register, it's this, it's that. It's the stuff we have at every single meeting. It's always sort of the same. It's always different, but it's kind of the same five things. And all of a sudden now we've got 20 policies in there. We've got a million one 60 and 160,000 in spending. And it's like I just think that just like Randy said, I think that public should know that, "Hey, we need to spend this money and we're being prudent with their tax dollars." >> Yeah, that's fair. I can even have vendors come in here and give presentations to you

101if you would uh if you would like that or if you would just like a brief brief synopsis of the uh projects, I can do that as well. But But we already know that. >> for us, but We [laughter] have LTFM, don't we? Yeah. Well, we used to and we used to give reports. We don't do that anymore. Okay. You know, are you on LTFM stuff? No. Are you? No. Used to be, Jeff, but I don't know. Peter said I couldn't be on it anymore. What's that? You and Jeff threw me off the LTFM deals. >> [laughter] >> No, I I would appreciate like any input that you guys can give for any of these projects. A lot of times I kind of just feel like we're out there just trying to you know, we're

102doing the best we can for the students and for the teachers and everything like that. And that's the main goal we have in our department and um any input you guys can give would be very much appreciated. So. Jeff, is there a committee right now that you report to regarding Facilities. Yeah, facilities. Yeah, April 16th is our next meeting and we can talk about it then. We get This is where the That's a good place to do your presentations or whatever. I don't know if it was our last facilities committee or the previous one before that, but Jeff talked about the things that he was had on the schedule including the football field being replaced and so forth. All of that money comes through LTFM and then the projects are >> [clears throat] >> sent

103to the state for approval first. And then you approve them. If you don't if the state doesn't approve it you're wasting your time. Yeah, and we we were doing these at the LT or the facilities committee meetings prior to the new superintendent being hired and all that when the focus shifted and we just haven't had a chance to address some of these at the committee meetings, but Well, you would you >> do that or we can do this. I'd more than happy to do it. >> Would you feel comfortable just giving us a 2-minute rundown on Harrison roof and the >> So, the Harrison roof, um it's I can't I couldn't give you how many years old it is, but we've had leaks since uh prior to the referendum being done. Um luckily our our

104team at Thelen has been able to fix these uh leaks. And this year we have the money to repair the to replace the roof, so that's what we're going to do. Same thing with the high school. We these roofs are, you know, way too old to be on there and we're lucky we haven't had worse problems with them and finally we're able to repair these. Uh the Riverside HVAC Jill can speak to this. Uh we've been struggling with it for 3 years. We've been running on one compressor for the music area and the teaching wings for the last 3 years and it's been Every year when the spring rolls around, I'm happy because I get to golf, but then I'm not happy because I get to hear about a lot of teachers being hot. It

105just doesn't work. So, finally we're able to get this done and we're going to do it the right way. So. What percent of the roof is the the whole high school roof old or did a lot of it get new when they remodeled? If I I shared in that packet that I sent, there was a the roof inspection that was >> it. It's all different colors. I was like >> Yeah, so it's got all the different colors and it's got my you know, it's kind of like green, red, yellow. What needs to go first and what needs to go kind of in the in the order. And I couldn't give you like we're in pretty good shape in most of on most of our roofs. Uh Forest View is the one that's going to be

106coming up next because none of the roofs have been replaced and it's coming in on 25 years old. So, we're going to start doing uh replacements on that facility coming up the next summer. Cool. Just hitting the worst ones first and kind of catching up and >> [clears throat] >> that's the goal. I know you had mentioned a pattern. Yeah, I know you had mentioned something about River or uh Forest View correct? On the agenda for next summer. Yep. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I think it's just more informational than anything else, Jeff. I mean, we're not We need to vote on it though. Well, I know that. Cuz we pulled it. Correct. Correct, but the reason we pulled it was just more information on it. We're not we're not micro managing not voting. No.

107I think it's I'm more in I appreciate being able to let people know what we're doing and and letting them know how it's how it's funded. So, I appreciate it. It's nice that we don't have to take it out of general revenue. Yeah. We wouldn't be able to do it otherwise. That's why we haven't done it for We've just got more pails. >> [laughter] >> Coming out weekends. It's the all right. I'll make a motion to approve them the four of them. I'll second that. All right, we've got a motion by Director Don Dellinger and a second by Director Heideman. Any further discussion? If not, we'll do a roll call vote. Randy Heideman. Yes. Sarah Speer. Yes. John Ward. Yes. Bob Bracken. Yes. Reggie Darnell. Yes. Stephanie Edelman. Yes. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you for

108your time. Thanks, Jeff. All right, up next we have policy number 602. Wrong order. Is that the right one? It's fine. Any difference. 602. Okay. Yes, the organization of the school calendar and school day. I think the biggest issue and this may have to go back to committee uh for you guys to talk more about it, but uh I can't remember how long ago as we voted on uh e-learning days and we weren't going to use e-learning days at all for snow days. >> a year. It's been a couple before I got on the board. It's been a while. It's been a while. And uh it now appears that there's some second thoughts about doing that. Maybe? What are you asking? Well, we voted not to have e-learning days anymore and now we've got a

109policy with a whole section of e-learning days. I don't understand. So, are you asking that it should be reinstated? No. No, what I'm asking is is it sounds like it sounds like it we some people want to reinstate and use e-learning days when we have a snow day so we're not closed down. That's what that's what we're trying to do, right? Well, it depends or the definition, but okay. What is The original what it was saying is that e-learning day is a school day where a school offers [clears throat] full access to online instruction provided by students' individual teachers except during inclement weather and luckily we didn't have to use it today, but in order to keep things under control, I think you should go back and allow that as an opportunity to use e-learning

110days. Because it otherwise the last thing we want to do is add days in June. And if we hadn't had taken today off, April 6th would have been the next day. And me personally, I would never end add a day at the end of the year. It's not good for students, not good for parents, and it certainly isn't going to be good for staff. So, if you want to try and keep the flow of education not being interrupted, that'd be the advantage of an e-day, but everybody's got to have their act together to make sure they're prepared for it. You know, there's the difficulty. Right now, we don't have it as an access because it's not allowed. If If I'm remembering, didn't we do like a staff survey and community survey and >> parent survey

111Yeah, parent survey. >> [clears throat] >> And um >> it. Nobody liked it. The problem was earlier, it's because it was under COVID. This would be an exception to the norm. I mean, how many snow days do you usually get? Two or three a year? That's the only times you would use it. It isn't something you would want to utilize just because you wanted to take a week of e-days. I I think wasn't the part of the problem is that many families didn't have access to the internet and or it was very difficult for families Grandparents were trying to deal with the kids. to do their work that day. Don't we think that I mean, here we go, but don't we don't we think we're going to end up getting out of these Chromebooks anyways?

112I mean, the whole world is ditching them. All this you know, all these countries are outlawing it for the little kids. So, then what do we do with them? Then, you know, it's like Let me ask you this question, Peter. And it all goes back to the kids for me. We want to improve proficiencies and outcomes. So, do we get that with an e-day? Which a lot of studies have shown, yeah, probably not a lot. And at the end of the year, where >> [clears throat] >> probably sometimes people have kind of tuned out a little bit towards the end now. You get down to into May and the first part of June and I I mean, I'm not disagreeing with you. I don't see the difference. Well, I don't I mean, to me >>

113a great difference because at the end of the year, it's a waste of time. At least during the middle of the year, winter, you can at least accumulate some I would think valuable learning still. Really? Yeah. Okay. I mean, how many virus When you go to college, a lot of people are doing you know, e-learning. Granted, it can't be maybe for K-12, but it can be for certain levels. I'm not saying blanket it across this the district, but when you get in when you're in Minnesota, what are you going to do when you have four or five snow days? Well, maybe we have to take a look at the calendar. >> Well, I don't disagree with you. But, it's unpredictable. Right. And I think I misinterpreted this because I was thinking it was for staff.

114For staff, if we were to call and um a snow day, that they would still report virtually as an e-day or whatever that is. But, I do think, you know, for example, if we have five or how many snow days we have built into the calendar right now? Two? Two snow days? Kind of, yeah. And then you're out of snow days, then what do you do? >> I mean, really technically, a snow day is more based on labor costs than student learning. I hate to say it that way, but it's true. Because you have to figure out if EAs, for example, if they don't work, they don't get paid. Okay. But, they'll make it up at the end of the If it's feasible, if it's feasible, yeah. I understand. I understand. So, and sometimes it

115puts a certain group of um employees in a tough spot because if we had a couple days back to back, it cuts their pay with check off in the middle of the week or middle of the month. So, then how do you catch up and they have to figure out how am I going to catch up with two days less pay and it just becomes a headache. Yeah. So, not easy. So, it's So, it's being rethought because I know Michelle, you're correct. We did it We did a survey. Do we want to you know, do we want to do another quick Well, I'm going to just say, hey, as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to refer this back in my opinion, refer it back to a committee and let you guys talk about it

116in policy. We'll figure it out. Cuz we could sit here until the cows come home and we ain't going to decide anything tonight. No, that's fine. Okay. Perfect. I like that. Okay. All right, so let's move on then to This would be action item number seven and policy 712. Ready? Yeah, I'm ready. >> I like I make a motion that we accept this policy as written and we just need to remove the word normally. And it's in section two of the general statement, number three, it says video recording will normally not be used in bathrooms or locker rooms. Although these areas may be monitored by individuals of the same sex as the occupants of the bathrooms or locker rooms, which is fine. Why would we even say that we will not normally have recordings in

117bathrooms or locker rooms? I don't want to I don't I I don't I don't see why we want the liability. Let's just say we're not going to record them. So, we just take the word normally out and we can approve this policy as written. Does that make sense? Is that a good motion or That's a long motion. Well, you don't have to put the part I read. >> [laughter] >> There's a lot of people Everybody out there that doesn't know what it says. I just don't know why we'd want to be like, we don't normally put cameras in bathrooms. I don't think we should leave ourselves open to that. Okay, we've got a motion. Thank you. I'm on the floor to accept the policy um by removing the word normally. Is there a second? I'll

118second. Okay. We've got a motion by Director Dondelinger and a second by Director Edman. Any further discussion? I have a couple of things. Sorry. Um Is this Ryan, is this your department? Sure. Okay. Where do we keep the videos? I mean, I'm not I know they're not on DHS data and you [laughter] have them. Are they Are they in the cloud? No, they're stored locally. Yeah. So, who has access to them? Um District admin can see the cameras and review footage. The only people that can pull footage are myself and Jeff, basically. Cuz we don't allow footage to go out. So, admin, that's principals, vice principals, superintendents, Jason, Marcy. >> Mostly the building principals can view and record and look at incidents. >> Like what How many people are we talking about? 50? 30? Less

119than 50, yeah, probably 30-ish. How long do we keep these videos? That's It's usually between 60 and 90 days, but Does it automatically get purged? Yeah, it gets rolled over after it runs out of space. But, what we normally will do is if there's an incident, we do what's called bookmarking it and then that saves it indefinitely. And then if we have to, we can pull it down and put it in the cloud too if we if it's a lawsuit case or something like that. Do we get Do we audit ourselves on this to make sure we're doing it right? I see it says that we follow the Minnesota storage rules in here. I mean, is there anybody >> rules are very loose. I think it's like 10 days or something. I just worry that

120we've got videos of young kids and then how accessible are they? I just want to make I mean, people's passwords getting every 30 days, all that kind of crazy stuff going on. >> people that can actually The people that can even view recorded footage [clears throat] is very limited to mostly just principals. Do you see it when they get in there? I can see it, yeah. So, I mean, when they go in, you know that oh, Michelle is in there looking at I can look at log files to see who has logged in and stuff like that if it's ever needed, yes. But, as far as actually pulling video off of our system and sending it and removing it, it's just Jeff and I. Well, cool. I think it's just important that you know, we've

121got a lot of we have a little liability there. You got to make sure we're pretty prudent on that and stay on top of it. I would think. I mean, they're kids. And the adults. So, I just have a a question. Is there a reason why we had video recording will normally not be used in bathrooms? Was there There are no videos in bathrooms. >> Yeah, but was there a reason why? >> MSBA probably did it. Oh, okay. Got it. I just I'm just wanting to know why. But, if we just remove that word, I didn't know if there were exceptions. Cuz I know our cell phone policy strictly prohibits anything in the locker room or bathroom. I'm totally great with that. I just was curious why it was in there to begin with. Okay.

122All right, any further discussion? Now, we'll do a roll call vote, please. Director Spear? Yes. Dondelinger? Yes. Director Brekken? Yes. Director Dondelinger? Yes. Director Edman? Yes. Yes. Thank you, Kelly. All right, so we've got a couple of committee meeting updates. The first on our list is the curriculum, instruction, and staff development committee that met February 19th. Director Heideman chairs that committee. Uh we discussed professional development sessions and the fact that I guess there was a positive response rate of over 80%. Uh focused on some continuing education credits for re-licenser. We also reviewed the comprehensive arts planning program focusing on visual and media arts and we're going to develop a three-year strategic plan in that area. Uh we discussed a little bit about the new social studies curriculum um uh shifting towards inquiry-based learning and ethnic

123studies uh I think there's going to be a lot more to come on that. Uh just discussion and Then we talked about professional development plans for next year uh including some mental health first aid issues, AI integration um and data management training. And there's a preliminary work on staff development plan and in-service schedule already for 26-27. And our next meeting is May 23rd. End of report. Thanks. Um next report is the policy and community relations committee that met on February 26th and I can give a quick update on that. Um all the policies that you saw here today discussed at that meeting. And um the one other thing I would add is Anne Marie provided an update for us on the strategic planning that was happening with the Gichi Ziibi. And there's a small group

124that's working on looking at uh management structure for that and or kind of a strategic plan to put together to figure out how we um make that a model that is more community-based and managed in a way that makes it financially solvent. So When can we expect that to happen? So they there is a draft that exists of that plan and proposal. And so they're finalizing what that looks like and they would like to bring it to this team at some point. Okay. Are we going to see it before a board meeting? It's up to us where how we want to see it. I would prefer work session and I think so too. And you've got time to Was there Was there any discussion? I I thought at one point there was a discussion about

125uh even maybe turning it into a a non-profit 501c3. Just a possibility. >> one of the possibilities >> the table. For management personnel. Okay, cool. Yeah. It It's really some exciting conversations happening there, but I think It's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. Um and let's see what else we talked a little bit about facility use policies um and some of the things that they're seeing come across the table there. That was about it. Our next meeting is TBD or April 30th. Okay. 23rd. 23rd. 23rd? April 23rd. And that may change. We've had some discussion about some conflicts on that date. So more to come. All right, informational. The Brainerd Public Schools Foundation, Director Adamson. Okay. The Brainerd Public Schools Foundation scholarship applications close tomorrow. Students only need to fill out one application to be in

126the running for over 100 scholarships. Last year BPSF awarded over $220,000 in scholarships to graduating seniors. Despite increasing our scholarship marketing, we have less applicants submitted than usual. So if you know any seniors, tell them to start filling out those forms. It has to be in by tomorrow. >> [laughter] >> Call them up tonight. Call them up tonight. Okay. So Brainerd Public Schools Foundation had another gold medal big event. The Olympic theme fundraisers combined with the Warrior Club sponsors has brought in over $80,000 in support of our mission. A huge thank you to all supporters, attendees, donors, and auction winners. BPSF will begin collecting gently used Warrior Wear at each school in April for annual Warrior One initiative. New this year, please do not donate it donate customized gear. These items do not sell well.

127What kind of gear? What kind of gear? Um customized like if you have your name on it. You know what I mean? Sure, got it. Yeah. Yeah, makes sense. Also, please donate with dig and dignity. Items should be free of stains, holes, and in good condition. Money raised from this initiative supports our school pantries. Nearly 8,000 has been awarded to our school pantries in 2025 and 2026 through the fundraising. >> [clears throat] >> Thank you. Oh, thank you. That's great. All right, safe and I just cleaned out my daughter's closet. She must have, I'm not kidding you, 30 stuff with Warrior gear. Yeah, they don't want the antiques. They want new stuff. [laughter] It's good stuff. It's not antiques. They've changed the logo since then. You can't have the feathers. Not going to happen. All

128right, the Safe and Welcoming Schools Committee and the Wellness Task Force update. >> Okay. So on this the Safe and Welcoming Schools Committee, two key members of our community put together a slide presentation to be shared with principals about perspective taking. And the Wellness Task Force, Smiles for Jake in partnership with Forestview is supporting a peer-to-peer student-led club called the Smile Club. The purpose of this club is to build leadership skills, empathy, and a sense of belonging while strengthening connections with peers, school staff, and the broader community. Students participating will help plan and lead positive, inclusive activities and events within the school. Our committee also has a small grant and we are in conversation with 512 administrators to determine a wellness pan plan for their respective buildings. And then the elementary schools will be included

129in this discussion next. Great. Thank you. All right, Business Services Report, Director Lord. Good evening. Welcome. Uh thank you. In your packet is the financial report. Um I want to note the building construction and debt services will be increased with the budget revision. Right now it shows that they're over just because of the um debt refunding that we had in the debt service fund. And then building construction, we did have some more activity than what we had anticipated. Um last month building construction, just following up that you know, you guys got the information of what that was spent on. Wondering if there was any questions. And then this month there is activity. And I was just going to note um server room, the UPS, Red House demo, um and furniture were what was spent this

130month. What's Red House demo? What's that? What's Red House demo? We had two red houses over by Riverside and that the one got demoed. The other one is still up and What are we doing with that again? Uh we would like to get that up for sale. Okay. Um I did reach out to our uh realtor and he did say that to have it moved, you could it would be approximately I believe 75,000. And it'd be very limited on where you could go. So that'll be a discussion for our committee of >> Okay. are we going to put it up for sale. Okay. We definitely can. Okay. Um I have one thing for you. Yeah. Is there any way like for the Maybe I'm way off base. So just straighten me out. You always do.

131So the building construction fund. Yeah. Wouldn't it be fun to have a balance? Like what the cash balance is? Yeah, cuz we're talking about moving this money around. It'd be like nice to know how much we actually have in there. You see how much we're spending compared to the budget. Yep. But it'd be just kind of fun to have a balance on it. Um and then the um the post-employment benefits one, too. Does that I think got a lot of money in it. I'd just be curious to see if it's holding its own, you know what I mean? Yeah. Do you want um historical or just like the last 12 months? Well, I just mean when this report when you guys give it you give it to us every month. So basically what it shows

132is that Mercy did a good job with the budget cuz she's right on. Yeah. Next month all these numbers are going to go up cuz it's going to be another month. Yeah. So in theory they should go up like what, 8% or something like that? 8 and a half. Um it'd just be curious to see like on some of these ones that we're spending down. Mhm. Like you know, the general fund. Well, that doesn't matter because yeah, that's different. But these ones that we only get one time. >> Yep. So I'd like to just see where they are. Yep. I can add that. Thanks. Mhm. Um and then also in your report is the enrollment report. So from the beginning of the year we are down 130. I don't even like to say that out

133loud. Um that is high. And looking at the five-year average it's around 84. So we are again with the budget revision we'll look at the October 1 count and then get that in there. But that is it is a lot. Um and then you guys had asked for a budget update. Just wanted to let you know we did since the last board meeting update the gen ed up 2.69%. And then remove the compensatory uh we removed BHS activity fees. We had in there 10%. We're not doing that. And then uh BOSS uh Brainerd Online School class sizes we removed that cuz we're not doing that. So we're at about a $2.4 million deficit right now. It's better than 3.6. I have a question, Peter. Yes. We lost 50 students from January 5th to February 2nd.

134So is that normal? Did they come back from Christmas or something like that? Or it's winter? Well, it's the end of the year. So what? >> some of them I'm assuming some of them may have gone to CLC or graduated early. Oh. Did [snorts] I figured you'd know what they did. >> It We could break it down. They're here. But you know, if you look at these we had 5523 then we went down to 5483. Um >> [clears throat] >> We had 20 We have had a lot of kids move >> 23 of them were at high school. Mhm. It's mainly high school. There's not really anything happening in the little kids. Well, I want to tell you one of the problems with the high schools is if a kid wants to go online and

135there's no room, they leave and they find online someplace else. Their lines are a problem with that. Plus, they're maxed out on this. I also feel like there's a lot of students at Forest View that go online. You [clears throat] know, to I don't know how many, but I think it's >> Well, we don't sponsor that yet. >> Right, but I'm hoping that we're continuing that discussion. >> there's our challenge. Can we do more online to keep them versus being maxed out and they go, "Well, we can't help you." And they go, "Well, fine, I'll go someplace else." We lost 12 seniors. So. That's you know, a quarter of the 50. Hm. Well, I make a motion to adjourn. Thank you. Thanks, Mercy. Um we have one more report left. We do? Yes. Oh, you

136already had your deal and you did the song. >> [laughter] >> I'll keep this brief. Um first and foremost, thank god the weather people were wrong. Um you know, we >> [snorts] >> I think the last four days going into break, the snow depths were going from 5 in to 15 to 5 in to 17. And I'm glad all 17 went south and we just got a few. So, cuz if we had to call off today, we'd be in a pickle. Um the other thing is that uh it was brought up about John, I think maybe brought it up about a levy. Um you have a new superintendent starting technically July 1st. The transition's going is going to get started, but if you're going to make a decision on the levy, yes or no, you

137better do it April or May cuz otherwise it's too late. You can't expect a new principal superintendent come in on July 1st and hit the wall hit the road running for an levy. You got to get it started before that because Chris or Chip is going to have more than enough going on if he's got to start that from scratch. I think you put him in a bad spot. So, you're going to have to make your decision on that. And the last thing is um now that spring break is done, um talking to a couple principals today, um we have basically 10 weeks left to school. And the next thing you know, we'll be done with MCAs. So, it's going to go really really fast and what we have to try to do is go

138slow to go fast, so to speak. We got a lot of things to get done in our when we get through the fast bridge, then we get into MCAs and so forth. Um you know, things are going to happen quickly. And for the board, I know Chip and I have talked about this. You're going to have to start finding time to sit down and talk with him. So that when he starts, he's got his feet fairly solid on the ground so he can be successful. And the relationship you build with him now is what's going to help him get started in July. So, um I know Kelly's going to work on that with Chip, but I really really encourage you to figure out you got to spend some time with him. Whether it's one-on-one or

139two-on-two, whatever it's going to be so that um you guys got to get to know each other. Cuz uh when July 1st comes, it's going to be riding a rocket for him. So. That'd be all. Question, Superintendent. Um Okay. The operating levy. Yes. Won't that be part of our discussion during the transition plan? With him as far as his thoughts and what things like that. Okay, I just wanted to make sure. I mean, yeah. Yeah. You don't want to [clears throat] just dump it on him. I agree with that. Nope. All right. All right. Thank you. Um there are some meeting dates there. Other than that, we'll look for a motion to adjourn. I'll make it. Second. All right. We've got a motion by Director Adelman, a second by Director Vandalinger. Assuming no discussion, we'll

140do a roll call vote, please. Yes. Yeah. Yes.