001call the meeting to order and we'll start with the with rol call please here here Stephie herey hman here yet all right please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and to the for stands na indivisible and right this meeting of the brainer public Brainard School Board is being conducted in accordance with Minnesota statutes 130 13 d.2 this meeting is being recorded access to the recording is available on the school district YouTube channel we will look for an approval of the agenda so move we've got a motion by director Breen a second by director Hyman any discussion we'll do a roll call vote DJ Dinger Stephanie edman yes Randy hidman yes Sarah spear yes John Ward yes Breen yes thank you we've got a number of recognitions here maybe we'll just take a couple each and
002go around the table if we could go this way I'm glad to to jump in and start congratulations to the 2025 athletic Hall of Fame indues Jim rer an stanglin Mitch Firebrand Allison kabud Jason Howard and Michelle hilborne and congratulations to girls Alpine skier Piper gillo uh Piper placed 18th at the state meet and earned all State honors congratulations to the girls nck skier anaise beard for her Seventh Place finish at the state meet and earning All State honors and congratulations to boys Nordic ski Gabe hren on his 14th Place finish at the state and earning All State honors congratulations to Warrior gymnastics coach coach Jessica Larson for being named the Section 8 AA head coach of the year and the state class doublea head coach of the year and congratulations to the boys swimming
003and Diving team for being crowned the Central Lakes Conference champions I me you go sure go for it congratulations to the Warrior dance team for winning the class triaa state championship and kick they also finished fourth place in jazz a program best congratulations the Warrior dance team coach Cindy CLA for being named section 4 AAA head coach of the the year I can do the last one congratulations to Eric congratulations to Eric Colden am I am I okay or not congratulations to Erica folden and Ben statam for being the named the triaa Athletics academic and arts winners for the brard high school both were finalists in the region 8 AA with Ben placing third and Erica winning the region thank you lots of Celebration says we wrap up wi Sports here all right next up
004we've got public input a member of the public can address the board during this time comments will be limited to three minutes complaints and 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 superintendent will not convene with guests to address the topics discussed at this time all right first up we've got Rachel con welcome good evening my name is Rachel Khan I'd just like to review a few of President Trump's executive orders with you several executive orders take direct aim at two pillars of the cultural revolution with these EOS they're called executive orders president Trump established two basic principles as fundamental to the Constitution ution and federal law number one diversity equity and inclusion Dei
005is illegal discrimination that violates federal civil rights law and the US Constitution the federal government will not fund any entity that illegally discriminates against Dei or through Dei and laws against discrimination will be enforced number two the united states recognizes two Sexes male and female these Sexes are not changeable and are grounded in reality as you know Forced Gender ideology and Dei discrimination are thoroughly embedded into government schools higher education has trained teachers in di ideology for decades ethnic studies teacher licensing standards and social studies curriculum have all Incorporated Dei ideology through seal social emotional learning Equity has replaced academic Knowledge and Skills as the core of Education with these EOS president Trump clarified that diversity Equity inclusion programs are illegal discrimination and are therefore in direct violation of the federal civil rights law of
0061964 title 6 and Title 9 and that the civil rights law will be enforced his EOS committed that the executive branch will defend women from radical gender ideology and operate on the reality that there are only two Sexes male and female according to the office for civil rights every discriminatory Dei program and policy must be halted to cons to continue to receive federal funding how much Federal funding does this District receive this law was effective last Friday anyone can file a complaint with the office for civil Li civil rights for example is your child bringing home white supremacy indoctrination person could file a complaint have you provided or recommended any anti-racism training as professional development for your teachers again another complaint could be filed is this District viewing everything through an equity lens are there
007any books that contain gender ideology in the libraries are there any surveys going out to students that will violate these laws like asking students to differentiate their sex as assigned at Birth or from optional gender identity are there any discriminatory programs or groups in this District please be sure to obey the law soon so the complaints don't pile up again thanks for all you guys do your hard work um to save our students and our next Generation thank you Rachel next up we've got Mark Olsen Mark Olson 12336 Thompson Road the law is clear treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve a nebulous goal such as diversity racial balancing social justice or Equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent so you guys are about $3 million uh in debt on the
008balance sheet uh $3 million short I'm guessing you also receive money from the federal government uh roughly around six million um I think you'll be in trouble you are not abiding by title six or by Title 9 in the Constitution you had until February 28th to do that to to remove all Dei from the schools it hasn't happened do you still have Equity task force I just read the thing yes you do by the way cell social emotional learning is just part of Dei it's just another uh form of critical race Theory with all of this you have the strange idea you need to have an operating Levy to pass to fund all these insane projects what do you not understand about federal law Trump's all state laws which have been passed by a liberal
009State legislation in the past few years federal law Trump state law there's a great site you can all go and learn about it it's called Child Protection League CPL action.com a wealth of knowledge on what has happened to our school system my suggestion is to start teaching and promoting the three Rs as I told the board over five years ago but they didn't seem to listen they had deaf ears your enrollment is also going down you all know it's around 5800 maybe 50 585 in my 50 years here I don't think it's ever been that low it may have but I don't think so the last thing are you thinking about another survey which in my guess is as perverted as the first one that you sent out I would say you need to take
010a hard look at that so if these items and many more are not cleaned up properly the US Department of Education the office of civil rights may be coming to District 181 and so may Doge thank you for listening thank you Mark next up we've got Tom coet I get that right Tom coet coet yep thank you yeah my name is Tom coet I'm from Minnesota and the topic of my comments tonight is on the executive order of keeping men out of women's sports I'm not sure really tonight if my comments are necessary but my fear is that I've heard on national news that states of Maine California and Minnesota are pushing back on President Trump's executive order and I'm unaware of of this school board's position on the topic it's my heartfelt desire that
011we comply with this executive order to the letter of the law for a variety of reasons but mostly because it just makes com sense my two daughters were high school athletes athletes competing in volleyball basketball and softball fortunately they did not have to face the challenges of competing with bi biological males and their athletic experience it's my hope that none of the girls competing in the Brainard school district have to face that challenge either we have a clear mandate from the federal government National polls and as I said before Common Sense to do the right thing and allow our girls to athletically compete only with biological females I started coming to Schoolboard meetings because I believe we can have a greater impact expressing our values at the local level we voted you all into this
012position to implement the values of our community and the education of our children please consider my request and do what you know is right in this matter thank you for your service thank you Tom last up we've got Doug Kern please so I just want to say thank you for working with smile for Jake I really appreciate that that's you guys do some good things there um I have eight sisters and five brothers I'm number seven out of out of the 14 and I have 137 plus nie uh nieces and nephews with the grace in there you know and you know I've been conducting this little this little um I don't know what you want to call it it's a test whatever see what people would say so I have here you probably can't see
013it real well but it's a little squeaky Highlander toy and I tell people you can have the toy if you can answer the question and they say well what's the question I say well this is a a bull and I take out my magical pen my little red pen and I say so if I put lipstick on this is that a female and everybody laughs about it I say well if I pull the squeaker out if I get rid of his junk is that a female so I pull the squeaker out the squeaker is that a female if I add a little more lipstick to it no it's still a male when we look at the the my sisters fought really really hard during the the 70s 60s and 70s for Title 9 for women's
014sports and I'm just here to say we need to keep women's sports women for women um when you put lipstick on something or or you change something it still technically is a male so um you're having males compete with women in sports the the Minnesota high school league they they I don't know how if they're going to bend their knee or what they're going to do but we need to keep women's sports for women my sisters fought too hard to get their track to get their baseball softball whatever they whatever sport they were into um they fought too hard to get that to change that and and I'm glad to see the executive orders because Common Sense should rule but it's not obviously not but again you guys do so much good work you know
015I'm not criticizing you guys at all I just you know that like this miles for Jake thing that you guys partnered up with thank you for doing that thank you thank you Doug all right we'll move on to the approval of the minutes from our last regular school board so move I'll second all right we've got a motion by director Breen and a second by director edman any discussion if not we'll do aoll call vote please Stephanie edman yes Randy Hyman yes Sarah spear yes John Ward John Ward he's muted sorry yes Michelle Breen yes DJ d i I don't think I can vote cuz it wasn't here did you read them did I read them read yep it's fine I don't care I don't know how I can approve the minutes I watched you
016guys so your all right thank you uh let's move on to the consent calendar I'll look for a motion motion I'll second we've got a motion by director dondelinger second by director Breen any discussion if not we'll do a roll call vote please Randy hman uh yes Sarah spear yes John Ward yes yes D yes Stephie edman yes thank you Kelly next up we have a presentation on the Forest View schedule changes presented by principal John Anderson welcome good evening good evening everyone thank you for the opportunity to present tonight starting next school year foru middle school will be implementing changes to our master schedule I'll start the slideshow uh uh I will be presenting tonight information about the rationale for the changes in our master schedule the work that has been done and the
017framework for our master schedule that we will be implementing next school year over the past several months our leadership team and staff have been discussing necessary changes of Forest View the schedule uh for this year and Beyond we've identified some priorities that'll be sharing tonight and needs based on enrollment projections and the need to meet State statutes on delivering appropriate curriculum opport unities for students this slide here will summarize uh the discussions we have the next slide we'll talk about our time frame of which we've been discussing some changes first and foremost on the top of the screen on this Slide by the start of next school year we must have a master schedule that supports our current and projected enrollment so discussions uh going back to may have been taken a look at our
018projected enrollment and how that looks like in our master schedule so there will be some reductions moving forward and I'll share more about that as I present tonight there are two sides to what we've been working on with um our master schedule in addition to take a look at where our uh enrollment is and what that is in relation to our schedule and sections we also had some areas that we had to have some alignment and some improvements in relation to our experience for middle school kids and our um alignment with standards Ryan are we having any technical issues here okay I can do some hand puppets if you need me to do that too my S so the other areas of emphasis are listed there um anybody who is involved in middle school studies
019middle school or um is in education Middle School know that teeming is a foundation foundational part of middle school and teeming means that we have groups of teachers that share um common kids and the kids share a common teacher so our challenge taking a look at our enrollment is to maintain an adequate level of teaming so that was a part we were discussing throughout this process we also realized that we needed to make sure that we have tier 2 time embedded into the schedule every day for every kid so we talked about models and what we could do to enhance our tier 2 time what tier two simply put is extra math and reading time for every single kid and I'll show you on our schedule for half an hour a day we group kids
020according to their needs and have groups that they can all work on wherever they are if you're at the 80th percentile we're going to have some resources and some instruction to meet you where you're at and move you forward if you're at the 20th percentile we're going to have resources and instruction to meet you where you're at every student will be taking a look at where they're at um and meeting those needs daily for 30 minutes and I'll show you shortly in one of the next slides as far as what our schedule is going to look like we need to analyze our special education programming I will not present a lot about that tonight as we're still working on that um but the phrase that we talked about is core and more how do we
021get um more of our our students with IEPs in uh General Ed settings and what supports do they need so we have some recommendations for that and over the course of this next month we'll be doing quite a bit of planning um with that once we've figured out what we want to do for our changes with the master schedule now how does our special education programming and support fit with that we have not been truly I don't say aligned with social studies uh particularly in fifth grade with our existing structure right now like this year our social studies uh standards are embedded into a seventh hour fifth grade has that MTS mtss tier two time already but we had to fit our social studies standards in there and we just didn't quite hit the mark
022so we're providing Social Studies classes for all fifth grade kids sixth seventh and eighth grade already have social studies but part of our master schedule we needed to include that um art standards have changed since we've adopted since our last adoption of a master schedule so we needed to include those changes quite quick summary of our art standards is uh every student in fifth through 8th grade by Statute needs to be offered three different types of art music visual arts and media arts and be able to choose two so we had to align oursel with those art standards um we needed to take a look at improving our physical education and our health education for all fifth through e8th grade students we're kind of ahead of the game a little bit with health with the
023change of this master schedule we are anticipating that all students are going to have going to um uh be required to take yearly uh uh standards in health so we have now Incorporated health class classes for each grade 5 through eight with this master schedule and lastly uh of the points of emphasis from everything from those points and looking at our reductions to to meet our projected enrollment last point is in addition to all of this are their opportunities to provide more exploratory opportunities whether they're informal clubs and organ gations that we can put in the day or adding um some exploratory classes of which we can say with this master schedule we have reduced staff we also have added some exploratory classes for every grade level fifth sixth 7th and 8th brief summary of
024a time frame of which we went through um back in May of 24 um we set sat down and looked at our enrollment met with staff and talked about that we will have a process of of the 2425 school year to take a look at a new master schedule that addresses all those points that I made earlier about our enrollment and all the and the other pieces uh that we need to become aligned with that started way back in in in May of 24 September we started to uh look at well I should say through the summer we started to compile some information from other schools and um put some preliminary pieces together other schools with similar enrollment uh how do they do with their master schedule business and start to have a file built
025up uh so we can have some resources to look at September we hit the ground running with um kicking the tires of different draft schedules and um seeing how we can fit again with with our sections and our projected enrollment and still offer all those opportunities that they shared before in December we shared out um some a draft proposal or draft to our staff and began began getting some input with our staff that continued through January and February we had two different drafts put in front of our staff to solicit some input um and uh that culminated into refining those pieces to the uh master schedule that I'll be presenting tonight forgive me for the rudimentary look to this slide but this is what I'll our shell of our master schedule will look like um
026I don't have the classes in this slide but this is what um this is what it's going to look like I'll start with the bottom to the top first um let's talk teaming um with the reductions and still trying to do our best with making sure that we have teaming we will be reducing teams so fifth grade we'll have three teams with a flex I'll talk about a flex what Flex means in a moment sixth grade we'll have two teams with a flex between fifth and sixth seventh and eighth grade respectively will have two teams with a flex now a flex team as you can probably suisee that for example sth and eighth grade they'll each have two teams specifically just to their grade level and then there will be a third team that will
027be shared and we will cross team kids so that Flex team uh you know probably going faster than um I should a team math teacher science teacher social teacher language arts teacher in one area of the school they share their common kids those kids share those common teachers so the flex team they'll have um a half of their schedule will be seventh grade half of those students will be eighth grade depending on the hour of the day um I do not have the full master schedule but if you'd like to copy I certainly can send it to you can so you can see how we we uh make that happen so the um the other box to the right of that um all teachers will be teaching five core sections if they're a core teacher
028obviously students will be taking four math English science and social but we'll be offering five throughout the schedule to make sure that we can get as many uh sections as possible um so to keep our numbers in each section as low as possible students this is a change particularly for fifth and sixth grade students in fifth and sixth grade will now have two periods of rotation classes offered in our existing schedule we only have one opportunity um for fifth and sixth grade for one class of rotation so we are expanding some things and we're expanding some classes for rotation classes as mentioned before we're adding the mtss tier 2 time for all students and then we're um looking at some improvements we currently have uh some time built in about 25 minutes a day we
029call power which is just structured study hall check and connect for academic time we'd like to expand that into providing some more exploratory opportunities and really being specific about what our structured study time is so right now we call it study and grow we'll probably change that title um but merely wanted to have that in there is that's a component to our schedule um that we um uh like to enhance and improve as you can see on the top it's a we'll be providing a seven period day our goal post of when we start the school day and end the school day will be similar to what we've had over the last 6 Years start at 820 end at 24 45 um we'll have a first hour 50 minutes to allow for announcements our core
030classes will be 45 minutes and then we'll have the 30 minute mtss tier two time in between 6th and 7th hour this is a little fancier version of it the fifth grade uh label on the top got cut off uh but this is kind of how it looks like for a general teachers schedule there will uh there is a prep time embedded to this it's just not printed in there um fifth grade they'll have their lunch and study and grow time uh between the 10 10:55 to 11:25 um and then it's opposite for sixth grade and then seventh and eighth grade will have their period five lunch and study and grow time there I'm going to give you a couple sample student schedules so you can kind of wrap your head of what a student
031uh experience would be I did not do every single grade level um but I just going to highlight a couple so fifth grade here's a sample student schedule first second third hour is their core classes math language arts and social studies fourth hour then half of fourth hour will be lunch and then the second half of fourth hour will be study and grow time and please no fifth grade will have recess during that study and grow time fifth hour then that's their first rotation period for this particular student and that one is the day two day one day one day two option or um so fied physical education will be be all year day one and then then the student will have art for a period of the Year Media Arts and Music on a
032rotation every other day opposite fiad sixth hour then student will be going to the rotation and that's an everyday class for a quarter and these are some added classes for fifth grade health science tech technology engineering and math meteor which is like a life skills class study skills organization um how to make change um those types of things it's a curriculum that um uh that um has been been supported by sourcewell and then multimedia and again that's every day for a quarter tier two time then between Sixth and 7th and then the student ends their day with science sixth grade seventh grade and eighth grade are very similar to each other now um that when you get into sixth grade students have to make a choice with music are they going to be in music
033um and what are their choices or are they not going to be in music so we do kind of have two paths fifth grade everybody kind of gets everything 6th seventh and eighth grade it it there's a fork in the road now because you're choosing whether to be in a music or not this student is not in band choir orchestra so first first hour be physical education and then we'll be providing career exploration classes we have a lot of work to do with that particular class um as far as generating some uh curriculum and putting our scope and sequence together but that um is new for all students not participating in band choir orchestra then you see the the um core classes there in the middle of the students day sixth hour then the rotation
034we've added rotation classes now for sixth seventh and eighth grade media arts art stem and health for a quarter every day tier two time then between Sixth and 7th and then social studies at the end of the day now this is a sample schedule of a sixth grade kid in band choir or orchestra very similar to what the other student has but the exception is opposite day of fet that's when they have their music next steps a lot of work to do that lies ahead of us um we had a lot of work to do with with refining our master schedule we do have a draft together right now that if we had to go live with this we could run our master schedule we wanted to make sure that we had enough sections and
035we were delivering a schedule that what we said are the components we're actually going to be able to provide so that part of the steps are done but we have a lot of refining left to do so first and foremost we will be reducing eight staff from this um for this master schedule so we'll have some new Staffing and assignments that will be done and a lot of people will be affected by that in our building from reassignments to reductions so that's one of our biggest next step is Staffing and assignments along with that with some of the new courses that are being offered we have a lot of curriculum work that has left to be done um we have a lot of planning with our tier 2 time how do we group kids what
036resources are we going to have how do we know when that intervention is working what do we do when it's not we got to map out all of those decisions um so we're not have any big surprises when we hit the ground running on the first day of school a lot of work that needs to be done with that we need to have some group to to meet um to organize our study and grow time and the improvements there with our master schedule changes we'll also have some physical changes in our School along with reassignment for staff we'll be moving some classrooms around too so we just have to have some work to be done just about a physical layout of our of our building again as I mentioned before we'll have our special education
037structure that we're working on um throughout the course a lot of work will be done over the course of this last next month and month and a half and then there's a lot of little pieces that have been brought up with our staff that we need to refine those pieces too so those are all the bullet points of of what is happening with our next step that lies ahead with that I'll take any questions uh principal Anderson um how many empty classrooms do you think you'll have in 25 26 um I mean that's probably an unfair question but I just wanted to throw it I couldn't give you a straight answer right now I can get back to you on that we do have a couple drafts put together what what teams would look like
038and what folks would beware part of that is taking a look at our special special education Staffing and where we're going to have those people be we might have some special education folks in a team we might not we have a lot of discussions a lot of pros and cons that we've already talked about with our staff about that so I can't give you a straight answer at this point no when you say teams again that's your Podge right correct okay correct thank you yep other questions Madam Jer yes director Ward thank you uh Mr Anderson thank you for the work that you're doing here that um I can as a former educator I can see hear and feel the uh amount of effort and work put into this and um thank and I thank
039you very much um it's it's important work it's extensive work and um unfortunately due to finan and declining enrollment um it's really um it's really problematic it's really a huge task to undertake and I really appreciate the fact that you uh really laid out the steps and um the dialogue and the work that was done can you share with us um you know how much the boots on the ground staff was involved in the process and the decision making absolutely um starting in December I should back up in in from September October November um our admin team met and we looked at different models we weighed some things out and then we brought some uh brought a draft to the table uh for input and one on one of our uh inservice days in December
040collected some feedback summarized that then in January um we had two different rounds um because we proposed uh a draft uh the first week back after Christmas break and we met with every team throughout the day and had some small groups in and received some input U from draft one uh summarized all that information then proposed a draft two based on the information that we received from staff and had another round of small group conversations with our staff then at the end of January um took that information made some of the Chang uh to the master schedule I'm presenting tonight um side note to that I just want to say officially that our staff um at foru as you know are unbelievable people um but it was it's kind of best at times worst at
041times or kind of both sides of the coin or I don't know what what cliche it could use they were very professional but they also knew that we're facing from reductions um so part of that was talking about the impact of reductions but the other piece is very professional about what can we do with improving our master schedule and um providing the best opportunities we can for for our middle school kids thank you for that thank you for that answer and um it sounds like the staff was significantly involved um and I'm hoping that that is the case um although um I and other board members and anytime there's changing um I think in people's lives General but I'm going to talk about just Educators you know a lot of times it's difficult um you
042you you do what you think you're doing best for the children and then all of a sudden uh you know there's a change and all of a sudden you're you it seems like you're back to square one sometimes so I'm I'm greatly greatly appreciative of as a board member at uh the um the the staff being in involved in final decisions because you know they are the ones that are dealing directly with our students and our children and having the impact on our on our children um I also want to applaud you and your and everybody that worked on this um because I and other board members and and uh community members and administrators and the administrative team heard a lot about the music concerns and a and a student um at one point there
043one point and correct me if I'm wrong Mr Anderson but at one point a student was only going to be able to take one music sele ction and you've now um uh changed that haven't you as far as I could tell I heard you say that on if on each other day of fied um they will be able to take either Orchestra uh choir or band that's that correct that's correct and in in um none of our proposals of our drafts was it uh I think that was I think that was miscommunicated somehow or misinterpreted there was never uh on of the drafts that we had proposed that you a student could only take one music some of the proposals that we had is that they could take two musics but not as not as
044often as we currently offer but the option for students not to take two musics was never an option on these proposals by communicating you hear that am I am I the only one in Minnesota in theer Minnesota that heard that that I did too yep question here some okay um and then Mr Anderson finally I heard you say that you you know you're going to refine you're going to review you're going to refine and go forward um you know making the best uh schedule decisions that we can for our our students at Force View Middle School and um I know as a board member you know we also have discussed this and looked at some other options and Alternatives and things of such like that um as if uh if if and when the board
045comes forward uh with anything that might or the administrative team or whomever comes forward with anything that might be an advantageous change uh for our students um is there flexibility within this uh schedule uh and the process to um to allow that um I'm always open for suggestions recommendations and thoughts but if it's next year the year after we want to go to a four period day and have skinnies and and all sorts of unique things um I'll listen to it but um our our shell of our master schedule needs to move forward for a couple years um if it's some other things about suggestions what we do within the structure absolutely we can make some adjustments okay fair enough appreciate it thank you Mr Anderson and and your staff thank you right any other
046questions from I have a few all right yeah John on number three you say more exploratory opportunities what does that mean those are those rotation classes those two hours that they showed in the um so that's that's your health multimedia stem classes um we've almost doubled the amount of uh opportunities in fifth grade so we have health classes for fifth graders sixth graders seventh graders and eighth graders correct are they going to take Health four years in a row they are we're anticipating that's we're anticipating that's where the state is going to going for for requirements for our our middle school kids so we're going to get that embedded now so how many years did we uh take help us I couldn't tell you well how many did you take h i was a product
047of Thief River Falls well my uncle Liv in yeah I know the Don lingers well I graduated with K so um we had a great how many years did they take should I text what you think we had in Middle School a unit in every grade and then yeah we did I remember that I remember taking a 10th grade and learning like uh you know I can't think of CPR and all those kinds of things and I remember the younger classes like in sixth or seventh grade I thought we took it like every two or three years but maybe not well that was one of my questions another question I have is the career exploration classes so we're going to put fifth graders 11 year olds and career exploration classes not fifth grade no sixth
048grade these are for the kids who are electing not to take a music so is this like sixth grade sixth seventh and eth so have you guys thought you've got all this space over there now have we thought about putting shop class back in there and like whatever they call home e nowadays I'm sure that's Politically Incorrect but these sorts of classes where you can learn some life skills that were back in our um in our Middle School I mean have you thought about this with your master plan because I've read a lot where a lot of these young boys don't like geometry don't like algebra don't like any of it and they don't know why they're doing it and they think they're never going to use it again and then you put them in
049a shop class and they have to make a funnel or you know whatever they want we're already doing it are we yep where do that come into this I don't see it's in those rotation when I said STEM Science technology engineering math we this our previous schedule like we wood class and metal Y and we do have home I'm married to a homac teacher we call it fax family consumer science and we have that na grade just I went through it relatively quickly but we do have a we offer fax class in eth grade well good that makes me happy I think that's where we need to get back to a little bit is to give these give them interest in something all right they make rockets they kind of cool I like rockets and
050they sh seventh grade and it's not out of a kit they make it out of material that's pretty neat I yeah cool oh that's great I've asked about this before and I we had to wait till you to high school to do any these things we're we're expanding it into sixth grade that's a good plan perfect any other questions thank you Mr thank you for your time appreciate it you work all right we'll move on to informational updates or let's see here I ski committee meetings committee meeting updates we'll start with chair Breen hey um last Wednesday we had our student Support Services committee meeting and the exciting thing about that meeting is that we had our first two student Representatives Leah sukup and Cameron Kramer join us at that meeting um last Tuesday I
051did a brief orientation with 14 students at the high school and there were um there's only 10 spots for students to be on committees so ironically there were 11 Juniors that signed up so at this point um I met with uh the student Support Services folks and the curriculum folks and then tomorrow I'll be talking with the other six and then assigning them to the other committees so Leah and Cameron were able to join us on Wednesday um lots of of celebrations that Jack Freeman talked about who is our activities director um it our strength conditioning coach has been a real asset to our to our district the program is going well um and that space is being U utilized regularly in fact during the winter there were 495 students using the strength conditioning space
052um another kind of um exciting thing is um there we now have one online ticket provider for Central Lakes con conference and that is Goan so that's a new platform being used to purchase tickets for athletic and music events um all Central Lakes Conference will be using the same online on online ticket provider along with having the same prices so the mshsl Minnesota State High School league has also adopted this platform um back in October um member districts voted to have mshsl adopt ninth grade Athletics under their umbrella so changes will be implemented in 2025 for ninth grade teams who will have to follow the game regulations and bylaws of mshsl going forward and one of the biggest reasons for this was to to um have a more um organized program to prevent injuries okay
053um we uh when we talk about our booster partnership project update all six of the top level founding partner boxes are sold for the new stadium electronic scoreboard so that's really exciting and Aquatic Center and JY and two of the six Community partner boxes have been sold um there's the Fine Arts and activities celebration on April 14th 2025 at 6m at giu zbi and the all sports banquet is April 28th um 6:30 at giy ZB so put those dates in your calendar um another kind of exciting thing um there's some data that indicated there were 418 males and 45 females who participated in athletic activities the exciting thing about that that is those two numbers are pretty even um while 190 males and 263 females participated in Fine Arts um we also received an an
054mshsl Foundation form a grant we received about a little over $3,400 um this is a reimbursement from mshsl for students that qualify for free and reduced lunch and the funds are used to offset the cost for students to participate in activities and no student has ever turned away to participate in any VHS activities that's thank you for that all right now we'll move on to informational first up we've got there's another ccul I'm sorry I I'm just going to skip that one too okay okay curriculum instruction and staff development thank you I was also um the Schoolboard member attending that meeting um we were able to have Haley Petri and Grace Angi um join us they were our student Representatives um we are uh conducting the Minnesota student survey in early May 2025 um let's
055talk about some of these are some of the highlights the Brainard online online school data there were four 561 unduplicated students enrolled in online classes in fall semester and 500 83 in spring semester and there will be a few more electives available next year um kindergarten registration will be held on March 26 2025 um from 5 to 630 they're calling it kindergarten registration rather than Kindergarten Roundup and one of the main reasons for that is sometimes that message meant that it was more um uh uh what's the word I'm looking for um a choice that they didn't necessarily have to go but we're really trying to promote kindergarteners registering on March 26 so we have a good count for next year so um each school will have the same um registration and um we talked
056about the Forest View schedule but we heard from about that tonight so those are the highlights thank you and thank you for getting the student Representatives kick off it's great new yeah all right now move on to okay director edman Briner Public Schools Foundation any updates um I went to that meeting today the big event um they did really well on that um I think it was over $90,000 that they had earned on that yep $90,000 and they are just so right now they're looking for scholarship applicants they have 98 and they're like more seniors to apply for it because 98 is really low number they're hoping to get like two to 300 and it's due in by March 17th I believe that they have to have the applications in so they're going to send
057out another email for that and then they were just kind of discussing about the big event that they just had this last last month wondering if they should keep it next year in February if they should move it to November and they were going to get a hold of Grand View to see if that weekend was open um that they kind of had discussed in November but nothing's been set in stone on that great so that was thank you all right and then we've got the equity task force and the wellness Task Force update both by director Breen so I was not at the equity task force meeting but director um ederman was there so yes um I was there at that meeting and um what we had talked about was um The Bullying um
058so they are starting they started it in September it's the student safety so we got to stop ask tell and um they want to put post poers and I don't know if they've started putting posters around the whole schools in every classroom and the teachers have to follow it and you just have to start at the teacher kids have to follow it and then we want to get parents involved too if we start in kindergarten and go all the way up through high school and just everybody does the exact same then the student should learn that if somebody's bullying them they can tell them to stop and um we're just trying to brainstorm on other ways to how to get more people involved in everything because I think we need to get the community involved
059you can't just expect the teach the staff to do everything the community needs to be involved and so we just kind of talked about that and everything so it's Prett just all about all about the bullying that's going on in the district okay the wellness question M Stephanie did you guys talk about the the new EOS the new what orders no federal government well we have $6.8 million that we're getting from the federal government and I guarantee you that de right there is a violation so the equity committee Uh Kevin boes told me was started after the George Floyd riot in U Minneapolis and from what I've seen in my two years board what we've done so far is we got those did you guys do posters Michelle those stickers there's those stickers sticks and
060poers and that's stuff about the bully my question is do we need to have the equity committee to do that or is that something that the school could just pick up Peter and handle I don't know but I these things are going to have to be flushed out of our system uh shortly there already 15 lawsuits going to Minnesota on items just like this and I don't feel comfortable you know leave ourselves exposed for7 over things like this so we're going to have to I was just curious that the committee if anyone's even that's even on anyway's radar um eay was Friday night but we heard from some of these folks um I've got a lot of them printed out they're not screwing around if you look at the form has anybody looked at the
061form to fill out to file a case yeah it's not like they're going against the state of Minnesota they're coming after us man and I don't think we want to waste our money fighting all these things we could have 50 of them in a week if you go through our strategic plan I'll bet you there's 250 violations in that it's unbelievable we are really in a pickle so we talked about maybe having a retreat or something and maybe getting a plan but I think the equity task force should be should be front and center for them because they're kind of putting us in a bad spot our liability wide open I don't think we want to be and I don't think we mean to be but the rules have changed but we have to figure
062out how to handal so that's all I got thank you all right let's see anything else you wanted to add on the wellness well uh the next meeting for the wellness task force will be March 17th um uh Sarah um Sarah Smith from Smiles for Jake and myself met with Christina lungren uh last week just to talk about the potential of bringing project 11 into the district um not sure where we're going to go with that at this point but smiles for Jake is offering a training um for their curriculum and the smiles for Jake board of directors is going to be offered the opportunity to participate in that curriculum um I think Christina lungren and Sandy Tois will be participating and then the wellness task force members will will all get trained so we
063have access to the curriculum so we can make some good decisions about what we want to do going forward um if if we are to implement that program and what that will look like and that goes through the curriculum process that goes through the curriculum process correct great does the curriculum committee get to look at all right thank you uh next up we've got the Business Services report Madam shair yes madame chair yes director Ward before you move on to the next uh committee item I was trying to get I was muted and I was trying to get unmuted before uh director Breen uh went into her uh into the Wellness task force but just in response to uh director dinger's uh comments about the equity task force I understand understand them um I understand
064the comments I understand the concerns um I also want people to be aware of understanding the other side of the coin uh when you are discriminated against or you are um for whatever reason in 1968 I was turned down for four jobs because I got a handicap arm and I would never forget that and um it it has stayed with me and um that was before for the federal Equal Opportunity Employment Act came about but uh as we make changes we really need to address the total um scope of things and not just uh a tunnel vision of things and I wanted to make sure that the other side of the coin was also heard thank you madam chair thank you all right Mery in your board packet is the fin fincial report uh nothing
065really new to note on there and I did want to give an update the budget revision is still being worked on um the there are bills being introduced so I don't have anything any updates as far as legislatively but I was going to one of the Hot Topics is compensatory that has been a hot topic now as far as um the calculation is now based on Direct certifications not the free and reduced applications and direct certifications and we will be incorporating that into our budget for next year so the any questions on the financial report the only thing I'll I'll I'll bring up Marcy is that uh the email that I got from uh mrea today uh sounds like it's going to be 2.74% increase in the general fund which is up about $200 I
066read in that email that's the uh what if formula correct yes yep what did I say no you it's the same thing yeah yeah I'm pretty sure that that's let me just verify that with the inflation Factor now yeah yep okay yep you read the same one they're all sorts of yes thank you I should have noted that so thank you um and then I also have the enrollment report in your packet and we are down 77 from the beginning of the school year the average since 1819 is about 83 so we're we're not very far off any questions thank you Mercy thank you all right and then finally we've got the superintendent report I have two things I want to bring up a week ago um Brer Police Department Baxter um Crosby niswa and
067Crowing County Law Enforcement um invited us to they call a reunification meeting and it's really about um re-examining what happens should there be a catastrophic event in the community or in our schools and um the point is to review the plans that we've had for quite some time the last time that um there was a practice drill if you want to call that was I think six or seven years ago and they're making plans to have a new um drill um probably would occur in the summer they would ask students and staff for volunteers to participate but the the um concern is that there's been significant changes in buildings throughout the county significant changes in Personnel throughout the county and it's time to bring people back to together and um what their goal is is
068that Brainard Crosby um Pillager uh we would all have very similar plans so that if something happened at Crosby for example we could send people over there and they know exactly what the rules are supposed to be and what the procedures are going to be to follow and vice versa um I think it was a really really good meeting um they're taking this very seriously um they're concerned about the fact that with so many changes in Personnel for the most part not very many people really remember but the original plans were what were supposed to be the changing plans and what are some of the demands being made now that are going to happen in the future so we're going to meet in um June and we're going to start uh narrowing down what type
069of behaviors we need to start re-examining what kind of things do we need to do to have a better relationship amongst school districts in the county and how to relate better with law enforcement so we have better clear Communications but it was a it was pretty serious meeting there wasn't wasn't very many Smiles that are on the table but it's a serious topic and um we need to get back on page with our local law enforcement then the other thing I want to share is that last Friday the chamber held what's called eggs and issues it was really excellent um Matt Dylan uh was the host so to speak um 250 plus people attended the breakfast and there were four local legislators um Justin ien uh Josh heinsman Kristen kuden and uh Ben Davis um
070they were given certain amount of time they could speak so they couldn't ramble on so that we could get through more of the topics U most of the discussion really was about the business um climate of Brainard and um there was kind of a little survey to kind of say what do they think the climate is going to be for the year and for the most part they think it's going to be flat which means there isn't going to be a reduction but there might not be much growth and the legislators addressed some of the things they're trying to correct or roll back that occurred last leg legislative session one of them uh particular is that in January of 2026 the extended Family Leave Act will go into effect which would mean that a person
071can mess up from 12 to 20 weeks of employment and be paid and the concern is who's going to fill that position when I think about our schools um we have a difficult time getting substitute teachers and if we have things going on where you could be gone for 20 weeks I don't know what's going to happen to the process of learning so they're trying to figure out how they can prevent that from going to effect in January um I said why don't you just repeal it but you know they don't have a lot of votes on their side so to speak and the other one is um if you recall last year with the 18 billion um they decided that people who work part-time can file for unemployment insurance and an example is that's
072a $400,000 bill for this District the question is is there going to be money next year for it and they're trying to decide are they going to fund it one more year or are we going to be stuck on our own and if we're stuck on our own I don't know where we're going to find 400,000 but it's um that's a chunk of change and um they're going to try to see if they can either repeal it or make sure the funding's there for one more year give them time to figure out a we we going to continue this or we going to get out of the game because um people at school district specifically but other businesses when you have to start paying out that kind of money for people who are no longer
073working over a summer or what it might be I don't think that was the intent but that's what we're stuck with and so they're going to try to address that for employees and employers I mean so but it was a very very well-run meeting and um he was we were all shocked at the number of people who showed up which is a good sign people want to get involved so have you seen what's going on with that Family Leave thing you're talking about yeah so they the walls Administration estimated that it was going to cost 710 of a percent and that would be split with us and the employee all right well they've already are off over 25% so now it's up to 088 the estimates are it'll be one and a quarter is where
074it'll probably come in um and it's 20 weeks um it's a there's a lot of pressure coming down from the chambers and the State Chamber right uh for schools small businesses uh you know take of it if you had a small business with four employees what do you do if one of them's gone for half the year uh you can't replace them because they can come back right and um it's a problem it wasn't very well thought out and hopefully cooler heads will prevail and they'll um come up with something a little better it's a little little it's a pretty scary deal uh for for sure for me and not just for the school like for in my world it's a it's a it's a very very big deal I think it puts small businesses
075in a very very difficult situation yeah anything with skilled positions like you talk about these Educators how do we just replace them for 20 weeks uh people that work on your car painters I mean just sheet rockers Architects I mean just the doctors you know nurses what if the nurses want to take the Summers off all a sudden Joe's like half their staff is decided they're taking the summer CU you can take it for your neighbor being sick it's not like it has to be if direct family member it's a little it wasn't very well thought out it was kind of during the The Feeding Frenzy they had going on down there where they were laying all the stuff off for these schools well then for us we got to we got to pay the
076substitute teacher too then on top of it I mean so anything additional oh that' be it all right I would just note we we've got some future meetings listed there one that is not on there that I think we are going to add is March 10th correct um at noon we'll be meeting to look at the budget for a budget yes revision budget revision um otherwise you can take note of the other ones that are on there as well um I just need to confirm um so the long range planning committee meeting has been postponed that right corre okay and has it been rescheduled yes when John gets back okay just because I'll meeting with those students tomorrow so so do you have the do you have a date okay what is the uh appetite
077for a u retreat I think there is an appetite for a retreat so maybe when we we adjourn here we kind of think about a time for that we can get it on the schedule sound good okay in the meantime we'll um entertain a motion to adjourn Madam chair Madam chair uh just a couple things before uh we we adjourn here before we move you look for a motion to adjourn as I looked at the schedule of people talking about different events coming up on April 14 uh director Breen talked about I think was director Breen talked about the Fine Arts banquet at the gchi at 6 PM um there's also a Schoolboard meeting that night did are folks aware of that yeah remember we had to work it out and that's the best we
078could do okay all right I came up last you know last fall when we made this schedule we did have that all right I didn't remember if that was discussed yet or not so thank you for that DJ um then also just uh I wanted to give a big shout out to director Breen um for the the uh beyond the duty work that she did in in the student committee reps um I believe that they're um really um going to add significant to um our our district and uh she she uh she went beyond the Call of Duty to get this rolling and going and so I should have stated that earlier but I didn't I was um not quick enough on my button again uh madam I'm sorry and then finally um uh I
079know I speak for superintendent Grant and both myself who have had some health issues recently and uh we have both felt the uh the prayers and the thoughts coming from other folks and we're thankful for that so I just wanted to add those three things Madam chair thank you very much y thank you director Ward all right now we'll entertain a motion second excuse me all right we've got a motion by director Hyman the second by director ederman any discussion if not we'll do a roll call vote please Sarah spear yes John Ward yes Mich Breen yes yesman yes Ryman yes