August 12, 2024 School Board Meeting

001six o'clock so let's get with it and call this meeting of the uh Brainard School District School Board to order we will begin with roll call please Kelly Kevin Bo here Breen here DJ Doner Randy hman here Sarah spear here John Ward four of six we have a quorum we can continue all right let's uh move on and 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 thank you all right we'll move on to the approval of the amended agenda as presented uh the amendment is to remove the action item for tonight where we were going to vote to potentially put the seventh board member question as

002a ballot question in November and since we have two board members absent and there was probably some dialogue that needed to occur around that because although I think all the board members were in favor of exploring the seventh board member we weren't there were pieces we still wanted to talk about um the only thing that happens as a result of us doing this I can still go to the voters for approval uh next year in 2025 on the November ballot and it doesn't change the outcome is if the voters were to approve it it it would have still be a seat that's added to the general election in 20 26 so it doesn't change that timetable at all it just changes when the voters would have a chance to say yes or no on it

003fair enough okay so that's the only amendment to the agenda there's only three so I need lots of motions I didn't know you need a motion I'll make a motion second all right so we have a motion from director spear with second for director Hyman to approve the amended agenda has presented any discussion hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please I oppose same sign motion carries okay we'll move on to public input at this time a member of the public can address the board and comments will be limited to three 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 Board of Education and superintendent will not converse with the guest to address the topics

004covered at this time so first up we have Mr Wade hokei come on on down I'll go quick since there's only four of you and one um first of all we uh hosted our second annual 14U triaa baseball tournament in Brainard July 19 20th and 21st we had 32 teams come from all over the state of Minnesota um we used three fields in the district and then we used four Fields out District the city the city of niswa the college and then St Maas um my comment on there was um policy 902 the tier system and I'm wondering if there's a way because this is the second year we've done this and not that we don't we actually lose money doing this but if there was a way that the system could be negotiated with

005the fee um there is that custodial fee of $50 an hour um that is on there and that's just policy it's not I mean that's just what the policy is and the grounds crew was phenomenal Dave borish is in the back Grace Earth Holtz that was the transition of Jeff fayton Jeff was awesome Brandon Beach everybody rocked it um our only concern as an association and as a parent and the only reason this comes up because last Schoolboard meeting director doninger is not here talked about fundraising um we have to raise funds to host this tournament so I don't know if there was a way with that custodial fee because we end up paying for our three Fields almost three times as much as we do for the other four and that being and it's

006not anybody's fault that's just the policy you know and and if you go by that I don't know how do you go around it I don't know what the answer is but I think Common Sense has to go okay we're paying custodial fees but we're really not using custodians to manage the field it's grounds crew it's it's stuff like that so it's not anybody's fault it's just the way it's set up and this is the second year hosting it and we're hoping that we can host it as people love to come to our area they love our field down at Don Adamson Forest VI fields we brought in a a portable fence and it was awesome they love it but I'm just I'm just trying to figure out a way to make it feasible and

007if there's an add another tier where you can negotiate support from the community to help offset those fees that's it all right thanks appreciate the heads up on that and next up we have Doug Kern thank you well just more of a a comment um over the last couple years um I've wandered with the book challenges what books would not be acceptable in the library and at this point I still wonder with the pornographic material that we have there what books wouldn't be acceptable you know to the school system um just I still wonder after seeing all the the challenges so thank you thank you Doug all right that concludes public input we'll move on to the approval of the minutes from our last regular school board meeting on July 8th we make a motion

008we approve the meeting minutes from July 8th I'll second so we have a motion from director Breen with the second from director spear to approve the board meeting minutes from July 8th has presented any discussion hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please post same sign motion carries uh next is the consent calendar make a motion to approve the consent Cal calendar I'll second that so we have a motion from director Spear and second from director Hyman to approve the consent calendar as presented any discussion hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please I I I oppose same thing motion carries all right on to new business uh first up we' be the presentations um maybe um Peter you want to do any of lead in for this so uh we

009had talked back in July about um if the board is going to be interested in uing a levy referendum in November 2026 um you've asked Marcy and I if we would consider finding some a vendor or whatever to uh make a proposal on how they would conduct a type of a survey to find out is the public interested in that uh we do we have a knowledge of what the um level of Taxation they would accept is there plat you know Plateau so to speak plus we could find out other things about the district what does the community members think of it are we doing our job um are we delivering the um education of our students in a appropriate manner is the is the board operating solvent with these School finances and so forth

010there's a variety of questions you can ask so um Marcy and I got together and we invited two presenters first one is Darren sers he represents School perceptions um Darren is the Minnesota rep I believe correct Darren yeah yeah okay so this is Darren sers of school perceptions welcome Darren thank you thank you thanks for inviting me gonna pull I've got a PowerPoint for you um I'm going to start by introducing myself a little bit though so um I'm a project manager of school perceptions but I've only been doing this job for two years oh you're up Doug okay thanks all right nice to meet you beautiful drive from Lake City from the cities you had to come from Lake City Lake City oh Bo that's a long job little background um I was born

011and raised in Lake City Minnesota uh and then I took a job as a guidance counselor in Suburban Milwaukee back in 1995 where and I st stayed with the same school district for 27 years uh high school counselor Elementary principal High School principal then the last nine years a superintendent I came into the position working for for school perceptions is they we were a regular customer of theirs when I was a superintendent we we passed a $43 million doll referendum with their support we use their staff and parent satisfaction surveys to gauge satisfaction and metrics and understand where we could do better on behalf of the kids in the community and in in in the Milwaukee area we had something called covid back in 2020 I don't know if it made its way to Minnesota

012but we even did a covid survey about re reopening school and what it would look like post pandemic to open up and meet the needs of all the different opinions that were coming my way as superintendent uh via email and phone so we got a 90% response rate for the community on what it would look like to open up that fall after the the Nationwide shutdown so through that process I got to know the owner of the company and he said I would really like to have a superintendent on my team because you understand what it's like to be in Marcy and Peter's positions uh day-to-day and I accepted because is I I was looking for a way to get home to Lake City because my mom is aging and and needs more support so

013I was either going to look for a superintendency or take a position um like this and it was a great fit for both of us because I believe in the product I've used the product and now I'm on the other side of the table partnering with school boards and helping them make big multi-million dollar decisions that our survey tools are designed to guide so I have a brief PowerPoint to give you some visual of what our process looks like um I thought it would be important you to know my background though because um I would be assigned your project if you decided to partner with us so um on the screen right now uh is is our team that you'd be hiring our our owner who started the company two 22 years ago Bill Foster

014we have a PhD researcher on our team who helps us study the data study the the trends and give you uh sound research behind um our our tools and then Carrie and I would be rolling out your survey uh handling all of the aspects printing um uh Communications and all those things but largely it would be me working with Peter and Marcy writing your survey from beginning to end very from the very first word to the very end where I give you a board report on of findings so that you can determine next steps we call it you're not going to referendum with us you're going to survey so you can shape your referendum around the community messaging the community support that we measure for you in the reaction to the survey so um a

015little background of our company uh we've been existence 22 years we've done over 10,000 staff student and parent surveys in all 50 states and now we've uh just tapped the 10,000 District Mark as far as districts we've helped in all 50 states with the referendum process with Levy process whether it's operating Levy a capital uh Levy a bond referendum is as such that you have a Minnesota so what's why would you do a survey why would you even consider this process well the reality of it is a survey is is is less a survey with us it's more of an interactive newsletter uh you're educating your community about the current conditions in the school district you're Gathering data understanding what the the community's financial and educational priorities are and you're going to help establish a

016tax tolerance so you go to ballot with good data understanding where you have support and where you don't have support a good example is my district back in 2016 my 30-year superintendent we were mulling a Performing Art Center a theater because we had this glorified gym with a stage in it um and it wasn't meaning the needs of sports very well or the fine arts school board was dead set against approaching the community because they said they knew this community will never build a facility but we had had the survey so let's ask the question guess what there's an 8810 seat $12 million Performing Art Center in in my old District now that the community shockingly said it's it's overdue let's do this so we help you do more than assume we help you understand

017what your community is feeling here and now about your District um so then along the way we don't just survey asking for money we ask overall satisfaction metrics we have a core Baseline of questions that we ask with every District we work with as I said in all 50 states and we'll be able to compare your data to other districts your size your demographic and tell you how you compare to others not just gather isolated data but compare it to Nationwide data on other how other districts are doing as far as satisfaction with financial management satisfaction with Educational Services things of that nature bottom line is people are more likely to support a plan if they understand the plan and that's where that interactive newsletter comes in and if they have a voice in creating

018the plan so what is our approach ours is rather unique statistically speaking our research director will will stand behind this a random sample can be statistically reliable absolutely um we don't philosophically as a company believe that that is the approach we want to take on behalf of communities and on half behalf of directors and School Board leaders we do an all-inclusive survey every property in the school district will be mailed a survey every member of your community will be able to take the survey so for example we just wrapped up Cedar Rapids Iowa 69,000 surveys went out on behalf of a district of 19,000 kids and we gathered that data and summarized their $220 million question and gave them feedback on where they have support and where they did not have support so they could

019shape their ref their referendum around exactly what their Community told them we believe everyone no matter how wealthy how poor young family senior citizen should have an opportunity to weigh in on the future of the school district where they reside we do not use the phone with our approach what it is it's a paper survey so how do they take the survey one is mailed to every household just one to every household there's a husband and wife that may be disagree all they have to do is call the district office and get an extra paper survey or 70% of our survey takers choose to do it electronically through our website we provide alpha numeric codes to the district and each survey then can be taken once and only once so there's no opportunity for ballot

020stuffing um and they can get an extra code or an extra survey by calling to the district office we do not flood the district office with work I think even Cedar Rapids Iowa had 19 people call for an extra code because generally speaking the household opinion was bore out by the person filling out the survey on behalf of the house okay so 70% will fill it out online roughly 30% will take it via paper depending on the community maybe uh further up north and Northern North Dakota where we've done some it's more of a 50/50 type of a proposition and we've had some as high as 90% electronic and 10% paper but um it's nice to give them the option to take it the way they want to they can take on their smartphone or

021they can huddle up with it over a cup of coffee and fill it out by hand so what does a survey look like no survey that we've ever done is look the same they're completely customized you tell us the questions you want we write it we uh decorate it with your logos and your school colors make it look like you feel like you but most importantly sound like you and then within a few weeks we send it to the printer we have a uh stable of printers that know exactly our expectations of how the survey is folded stapled mailed we take care of all that for you and we customize it to meet your needs any questions you've been wondering specific to Brainard we'll put in there you tell us what you want to ask

022we have Baseline questions that have that comparison group but if there's unique things that are very specific we had a district huge open enrollment losers and they just wanted to ask why are we losing so many kids to open enrollment we just launched a survey to ask and why and we're Gathering all those reasons so it can reverse that Trend and address those things head on here's some samples of of how a survey would look just so you can put there's always an opening letter clearly from you with your logo on it explaining the survey we I will warn you we're not wordy people we write briefly Every Man's terms we don't talk about 21st Century Learning communities we don't talk about stem steam we call it shop if we're asking for remodeling of the

023tech ed area because we need everyone to understand what we're talking about U there's a lot of educational lingo out there we're not here to confuse we're here to simplify and educate and gather input on things that they understand this is an example of the box where they we inform them of the two ways that they can take the survey first one being um uh online second one via paper we compile input all the results for you you don't lift a finger until we come back with your PowerPoint summarizing the findings and deciding are you going to write a resolution or not very clearly articulate what the due date is we have disaggregated information so we can break it out by their age by their are they a resident or a non-resident because we do

024gather input from your open enrollment parents because they are choosing to come to Brainard for a reason but then we disaggregate out their data as far as taxpayer and voter projections because they can't vote so we want to know how they feel and we want to know how your staff feel but if they're not voters then when we give you a projection of of what the vote likely would look like in November then we pull them out we break it out by municipality I had the challenge in my district of a couple the mun municipalities had gone to ballot already and passed um tax increases for an ambulance Center or for a remodeling of the of the uh the city hall but we needed to know that because we were also talking about tax increase

025and we broke out the data by municipality and then we asked them how they want to hear be hear back from you it's one thing to survey a mistake that's often made is districts are good at Gathering survey data they're not always so good about communicating it back we'll help you with that we'll provide documents that allow you to report back to them we asked this is what you told us and we'll also find out the preferred modality Some people prefer a website some prefer email some like to get a a Facebook update we'll we'll find out from your parents how they want to hear from you about the service results and day-to-day just their regular School News school closings all those kinds of things um any other questions you're wondering about if you have

026future capacity concerns here's an example of a district we worked with last year that that that had projections of over um overgrowing their buildings and they needed to prepare the community for a rising student population that needed a new elementary school and a in a new grade configuration sometimes districts come to us I'm working with socker Rapids rice right now they have some expiring debt and they see an opportunity to do some more Bond work without any tax increase they can just reinvest the current Levy into reshaping some of their buildings and and maybe at a slight tax decrease and reinvesting those Bond dollars that are already committed as they expire so we educate about why we're asking now and why the timing is right to reconsider a new question um we try to make

027it simple checkboxes very clearly articulating what the question is if it's a if it's a bond referendum we work with architecture and construction Partners to put imagery in front of them so everyone understands what building is being talked about and what the new uh wings of the building would would look like and where they're located another example of that we we partner with Architects all the time on this because uh image is worth a thousand words in in the world of surveying another example um sometimes we ask for input on how to reconfigure grade levels where we have overcrowding or sometimes what's facing a lot of schools in Minnesota and in Wisconsin are facing is downsizing and having a right siiz schools because it's getting too costly to operate schools that aren't at maximum efficiency

028and maybe only have 60% capacity and then ultimately what Peter referenced before we do a tax tolerance chart we'll help you if you're wondering this amount versus this amount versus this amount we'll put all the different tax uh uh implications in front of your taxpayers and let them react I just did a project in Crosby ironon where they needed operating Levy dollars and we put three a good better and best scenario in front of their taxpayers and said which of these would you support and this is what's at stake at each threshold as far as what programs could be maintained what programs could be reinstated or what programs could be added and the taxpayers reacted and now they're going to ballot with informed data about what their operating Levy will look like again just some

029samples of different surveys we've done and this is a good example of a tax tolerance chart where we break it out for them by year by month on how much of a tax increase they would be facing at each threshold of $2 million increment increases to spell it out for them and they we find that that sweet spot where the support and the dollars intersect timeline to keep in mind um over overall we have to be careful uh about Gathering the data early enough that you can meet the 90-day uh deadline for writing the resolution and getting it on the ballot but not so far in advance that people forget what what the question was we have found a year is too far in advance six months is the perfect time to survey because then

030we can gather the data report back to you you have time as a board to Mo what are we going to put in the ballot sometimes it's Crystal Clear and could be done the same night that I give my report other times it may take a couple of meetings because maybe it's a 50/50 proposition and you want to be sure you put something um on the bout that passes because with some of these operating levies you're talking about jobs and maybe in some cases dozens of jobs if the the levy doesn't pass so typically it takes us four to six weeks to write the survey from there it's eight weeks start to finish two to three weeks to print it 3 we window and we prefer three weekends because people tend to take surveys on

031the weekends when they're getting their groceries paying their bills and catching up on their personal life in between chasing their kids chasing their kids the soccer and doing all the the busy things that come with with parenting today um but I will also tell you 75% of your community does not work at the school and does not have kids in school that's the group that's going to make her break the question that's the group we really really need to hear from because three out of four of your voters aren't directly impacted by the school but you'll need their support with whatever question it is that you're going to ask at The Ballot Box so we have it open for three weeks and three weekends and then it takes us a week and a half to

032two weeks to compile your findings and report them back to you sometimes longer depending on the number of comments because we do offer free form comments and it takes us a while to read all of those comments and report back to you the common themes that come from those those comments because there sometimes there's there's a very long narrative three pages long but that's just one voter and that may not represent the masses we study what are the most common s to 10 themes that came out of the survey so you know what the masses are feeling not necessarily just the one off that's very angry about a gym or something that that has just been bothering them for years so typically uh that's that's the timeline that we follow I'll give you a sample

033timeline to meet a November a November vote now I I heard Peter say November 20 I developed this just to give you an idea of a November 25 in mind we would start writing the survey January February you would be the final word on the survey uh while we'd be on the front lines working with Peter and Marcy most likely ultimately uh superintendent and business officials put the final survey in front of the the board because the last thing we want you as a board is to be uh sideswiped by the wording of a question on the survey or a line of questioning that we introduced on the survey you're going to get stopped at the grocery store wondering tell me more about this before I complete my survey um then we would finalize it

034send it to print in March uh have it open in early April close at the end of April have findings to you by May so that you can make a decision June or July to meet that that resolution deadline and that 90-day Mark for for having something on the ballot Daren we would be doing 2025 you would be because we would need the if this all works out then the funding would begin in 26 understood okay when you said 26 I wasn't sure if that was a survey launch so yeah this then this is the exact timeline we would follow very proactive the fact that Peter Marcy reached out to us now it's great timing because we can start uh having conversations about your needs but we probably wouldn't start writing the survey until right

035after the new year and just make sure that it captures where the district are is right there at that moment as I said we've done over thousand of these over the last 22 years um we'd be thrilled to partner with you uh but at the minimum I'm just honored to make the trip up to brainer and to talk to you about our product I'm proud to work for the company because I really believe in the process it helped transform my district from having five archaic buildings to five modern facilities with secure entrances uh security cameras and all the latest safety technology and one of the leading teched departments in the state of Wisconsin now um after after the remodel that our community stood behind and so it's exciting for me to work with districts and

036help them transform their districts and take them to that next level that they're seeking to find so any questions you have for me i' I've done way too much talk and I much better uh being asked questions I just have a quick question what's the response rate typically glad you asked um 18% okay so um it depends I would what I'll what you'll find um bigger districts maybe have a small smaller uh percentage because for whatever reason bigger districts get a lower percent of a response rate just at a district in northern Wisconsin last fall they had 46% response rate because they're the largest employer in town and everyone is really paying very close attention to their operating question but I would tell you just I'm writing Sock Rapids rice report right now typically we

037have a a dip in the return rate in the summer because people are busy at 25% and their District slightly smaller than you but 5,500 kids so they got a great response to their bond questions any other questions I like the idea of uh keeping it simple uh sometimes people tend not to fill stuff out they got to go through a lot of Hoops and do a lot of reading uh that was my steepest learning curve sir um I I write I write was writing like a superintendent and my boss who's a Plastics engineer abruptly quit that role because he didn't find making gas caps rewarding and he invented this company he went to work as a teacher's aid for a year to get into his schools and he said I've got an idea about

038how to help schools so that's where this company came from and he had he had said Darren we got people don't know what you mean by using that term so he really coached me these last two years on how to get the wording just right and he reads every survey before it's done because he knows what he's looking for as the president and owner of our company so you got to keep it simple good speak a little bit to the audience you said it goes to each household and then you talked a little bit about wanting to know also what staff know and feel even if they're not in the district how how how do you disseminate that letter or does it get mailed to their household as well what what are the meal everyone

039gets the exact same survey just what we do is um we have a not only do we have that PhD researcher behind the scenes we have a PhD computer software engineer who writes the program for us with a click of a button we can gather all the data just from the staff all just the resident staff resident parents non-resident parents we can disaggregate it by any subgroup that you want to study and that's how we're we're able to just send the same survey to everyone else but have a different complexion of the survey based on who they are so the wording is the same support that or uh filter that by other demographics like municipalities and stuff like that you name it yeah um one group that we watch very closely 65 plus very sensitive

040as you are as a board to the fact that they're retired they're on a fixed income and any new tax they're sensitive to because they they they can't go out and get a raise if they're living on Social Security we try to be very sensitive to that we watch that group very closely we watch the the young parents very closely because we understand that they're just they may still not have been able to come up with that 20% down to buy their first house and so we'll help you study all those demographics our software converts the survey to 52 different languages of the push of a button so if you have a second language population um sometimes we we have M sometimes we have Chinese most common obviously no surprise that' be Spanish but we'll

041we'll translate the survey for you um you don't have to do a thing there as well okay so the loaded question sure um when you do your own self analysis and write your own report cards on your let's say your batting average when you provide the data I mean U how do a little bit about how you measure that and how do you do yeah we don't measure I I'll be very clear um because sometimes I meet with boards and they think we're going to I actually got teased about this when I took the position by my fellow superintendent in South South Eastern Wisconsin you're going to go sell referendums with Bill Foster this company does not believe that we're selling referendums we are an independent third-party research firm that's going to inform on a

042potential referendum we measure success on not if it passes or fails we measure success on whether our data matches up with what happens at The Ballot Box with whatever you decide using our data so for example eight miles away from me back when I was in my rookie year superintendent neighboring District had support data for a $60 million remodel the superintendent said and the board said we think we can get 120 and get the whole banana at one time it failed we counted that as a we were right because we had support for 60 and our owner even warned them said if you put 120 on there and it fails you may not get 60 the next score round because you what you've done is you you did a survey knowing what you were going

043to do all along and you didn't listen to the data that's our company line listen to your data you hired us to gather data listen to your data otherwise you're going to alienate your taxpayers they went back to ballot a year later with 60 and that failed too they had to settle for 38 and endure two years of construction inflation and 38 million didn't build them what what 38 million would have built them two years earlier so answer your question 94% 94% of the time your metrics which makes sense which means if we say it'll pass and they put the question that exactly as word in the survey on the ballot it has passed but also we we count it a win if we say you don't have support we don't advise you to go

044to the polls right now if our data holds up then we count that as a win because we want to be reliable for you we don't want to pass it for you we want to inform on your behalf gather feedback on your behalf and and give you good guidance on what to put on the ballot so we really want to pride ourselves on being reliable we're 101 for 102 in Minnesota the only time we were wrong in Minnesota they changed the dollar amount between survey they asked for a couple million more and you'd be surprised I had another project in in Wisconsin near oir 22 2 million was supported they tried to squeeze out 25 and it failed don't if you name it but was that District in Minnesota anywhere near here no and I

045we I pride myself on our confidentiality I try to learn from experience but I will never talk about other districts by name um so really really hand I I will tell I will talk about my old District I would tell you that Not only was was the prediction uh 7030 on the five secure entrances um but that's exactly what the voter turnout was it was not only did it pass but it was with within 1% of the survey projection that's what the voter response was and the other nice thing is with that Performing Arts Center we were hovering around 5248 came back to the architect and said it's awfully close to call because we'll give you a margin for error too based on the number of surveys returned okay so that you can plus or

046minus by percent or two our architect went back to the drawing board and said they're not there's it's not a shoe in so he redesigned it shaved a couple million off took the balcony off because it was fancy but wasn't necessary made it Stadium style and the redesign P 6040 because it dropped from 11.5 million to 9.9 we got under that $10 million Mark something psychological about that too just a little bit more reasonable showed them what the tax I took the the show on the road and explained to them at at lions at Rotary uh PTO meetings and explain to them we heard you it's a little Rich for this community's Blood we're going to make the the the Performing Art Center a little a little bit lighter in the budget and it pass

047so that's how you can use that reliab reliability data to reshape your decision- making doesn't have to be word for word you can change scope based on the data we're going to provide based on the data that you get do you ever recommend not proceeding with we do we do we do it all the time it's hard um but but um yes it we we we highly recommend it in fact because again it sends a T message to the community now if it's 50/50 the messaging can be we're going to turn it over to the taxpayers to decide but if it's 45 55 45 yes 55 no or in North Dakota South Dakota and Iowa where it's got to be a super majority 60% to pass we've been given very clear guidance about that you

048got to be very careful because if you're if you're hover around 5248 and you need a super majority you're not even close now you may ask what about that 6% where you've been wrong the majority of the time that's been when something unexpected happen behind the scenes between survey and the vote um a no committee went out um and and put signs in yard saying don't support that tax increase I had that happen with the district um in Wisconsin uh this spring where the anti-tax group came out and and it was 5149 already he said we think it could pass but the no group came out and it went down in flames because then things are being revealed about administrative salaries and all kinds of ugliness we we can't anticipate that reaction once a tax

049increase is put out in our survey form we also had another District where they had glowing support and then the properties were reassessed and everyone endured a 30% tax increase and then it went down in flames because the numbers we said in the survey changed dramatically and then amount of property tax increase and the level of property tax on from the school on their bill changed dramatically because of the reassessment sometimes there's things that we can't predict but we've taken a very close eye and talk to municipalities intentionally to make sure there's not something like that that happens in between because then they just wasted the survey because uh the data in the survey was very different than what ended up being on the ballot great questions yeah you well I suppose we should ask

050what's this going to cost yeah this this survey now from front to back um uh I I don't have the proposal in my hand I believe what I sent you Peter was $10,700 for for um us services from the very first written word all the way to reporting the findings back to you is a school board so the the writing so there's phases there's the planning writing launching and Reporting back are the four phases of our services the the the costs that are independent of us that you will would need to pay for over and above that would be printing um and I did get a a quote to the district based on 24,000 surveys that's the number we got from your Community Education director um I'm worried that might be a little steep um

051I'm very my district in Wisconsin was 419th out of 423 per pupil expenditures in the state of Wisconsin so we had to operate on a very lean lean budget so I I brought that I can't shake that mindset I can't spend District's money lightly I would urge you that we may want to take a look at that mailing list to make sure there's not too many um doubles and triples Community year size for example Sock Rapids rice they have 5500 kids and we launched 11,146 surveys so I'd be surprised if if that that list didn't have an awful lot of redundancy in it we have a company that works for us that for two to three $100 would do a brand new mailing list of all the current property owners in this District based on

052a Google map and and your your School boundaries for $2 to $300 that's yours to keep from that point forward for any future newsletters for the follow-up after the survey that Peter May write and saying this is what our board is thinking going into November of 25 however you you plan to do that people really appreciate have some that follow up in hand though I would tell you newsletters are still there something old school and very popular about getting something in the mail from the school um so that would be on you as I said $24,000 was $88,000 to print 24,000 so if you do that by scale let's say you're slightly bigger than Sock Rapids rice let's call it 15,000 you'd be around 6,000 front to back to print it um and so on

053and then the you do get charged 6 cents per survey for when it's a business reply envelope back to our headquarters that's a little tricky to gauge but if you you use our stats at 30% do the paper version 30% of roughly 15,000 that's how how many times sixense the post office is going to bill you for that reply envelope so Postage and printing is yours we do everything else though and we have a stable of printers that really love the idea that we did 75 of these projects this spring um alone which was a company record the previous uh High we've ever done a semester is 43 just had that many districts in Minnesota and Wisconsin trying to get on the November ballot which by the way November is the best time in Wisconsin

054to put a referendum on the ballot and it's the worst time in Minnesota to put on the ballot even though we're only separated by a river our PhD uh researcher is studied it and passage rates go up in Wisconsin based on voter turnout Minnesota voter turnout makes referendums um fail at a higher rate I don't know what the difference is but he studied it all the way back to our infancy and found that uh voter that the presidential election The Prime Time Wisconsin so that's why we were swamped with Wisconsin that's the question I was going to ask is that irrespective of what the other general election Cycles are doing or is it specific to a presidential election cycle presidential election because of the turnout was so high at the presidential no I anecdotally through

055msba and other things we we sessions we've been to they all said stay away from it in November of 24 yeah unless you're unless you're Wisconsin district and they all just piled up this spring but um so yeah that that is that is something to keep in mind and I think you talking about putting this out there the following November then that fits with the data that we've gathered on behalf of Minnesota so we' be looking at 10,700 plus Printing and if we wanted to develop a new mailing list using your $300 $300 okay you're going to be I would tell you you're be well well under 20,000 what did what did we come up with as far as alien list through Community Ed 20 24,000 was I was given it just seemed the only

056thing I'm basing that on is is the fact that I ju we just did Sock Rapids rice which is 50 I think you're 6,300 kids Peter roughly we just did Sock Rapids rice which is 5500 and that was less than 12,000 surveys mailed I I was just surprised that you'd be double even though you only have 800 more kids but you also have a ton of you you pull from a broad broad region and that may have something to do we study your census data as far as how many school AG children you'd have and how many this that may be indicative of how many retirees want to be up here and live up here but don't have kids in the system so it could be right I don't want to doubt your community ed

057director in any way shape or form I just don't want to send more than one survey to each home because that's that's District money that we're we're spending on your behalf so I I think it's just worth a further conversation is we if you decide to partner with us we'd study that in the fall and it it might be worth the $200 to $300 just to refresh that mailing list almost every District we work with are like wow that's pretty cheap to make sure they'd get we'd get that back in one mailing if if we're not double mailing things at a high rate what's your average postage rate on a on a survey you know I it's quantity based I'm sure yes yeah I I can't quote you on that but it's it's it's it's

058shocking I'm shocked how reasonable it is yeah so you would recommend using your printers I would the the reason because of the the now I two things I would say yes unless you have a reliable printer locally so I I don't want to be a hypocrite in my district uh our rotary president and his wife own the local print shop and they're glad to do a very reasonable print job for us as almost like a donation to the community so if you have a relationship like that great I would tell you we have seven or eight in our stable appr printers though that they can finish our sentences for us as far as the printing process I just have to send them a file that's approved by District Administration and the board so there's there's

059something said to be said for the efficiencies we gain by using experienced printers that have done this for us for the the last 15 20 years so is RR Donell in your stable r r Donell no okay largest print shop and they're in Milwaukee of all places so no so I mean we we can certainly investigate that I mean that's part of my business is is printing and mailing tax forms so we we've done a lot of research on that Quad Graphics is down there too which which does a some high highend magazine sometimes we're our products are are because we also try to cross negate save the district some money and some of those bigger boys they just it's just not worth it to them we tend to go with these more medium-sized um

060shops that are just love the steady stream of work that we can provide them well the nice thing is what you've got is I mean it's a static thing that's going out to everybody right it's not variable right so you don't need as sophisticated a print vendor to to do something where you're let's say you're sending them a a a zip file with 27,000 PDF files that they have to print in something like that correct it's on 11 by 17 sheet folded over Center stapled and then tab and then it just reads like a book opening letter from the superintendent so it's got like the perforated tab that you can just slide it like letter open whatever typically the the opening letter comes from the superintendent and School Board as a unified leadership group um

061other times sometimes it's just the Schoolboard president maybe if they've been a long 10 president that just has such credibility he says no I want this to come from me and yeah that's not the case here so yeah um so that you will you will tell us who it's from and and uh how all of that goes and so credible but not long term okay very good very good another meeting about that yeah yeah so what else what else do you need to know about school perceptions that was extremely comprehensive and useful thank you very much really appreciate my pleasure my pleasure okay thank thank you so much thank you Darren very very good and see Peter's here Peter reached out yes on his agenda next Monday oh a real quick update our other presenter

062did put the wrong date on the calendar so um he did say that he could join virtually if you guys would like but he does not have access to his presentation he would just talk about the company so I kind of leaving it up to what do you think superintendent Grant y let I'm not very thrilled we were quite explicit bad Optics you know what I would like to do is I'm gonna dismiss myself refer to that as a timely recusal I'm not trying to get back to Lake City I just think you'll talk more honestly if I thanks again thank you I don't well what I would say is there's familiarity with the Morris Leatherman model right you've been through it um I've studied it a fair bit as we were looking at this

063process two years ago at msba had um Peter come and present data and explain like in breakout sessions so we have a gist of it so I would say um to have him just do an overview of the company on what I what what I think we would like is a detailed proposal that kind of explains what they offer and how much it would cost for a cost comparison sake because their model Peter you can speak to it better than I can is quite different in terms of how they gather data theirs is a telephone um survey and um they will pick out of 20,000 residents whatever it is a specific number of people to call um it's a typical political survey really I mean you know you think about survey that are done across

064the country they only talk to 1,800 people out of 300 million whatever um Peter said that probably they would do 400 survey calls they call until they get the 400 though they keep calling until they get the number that they want um their accuracy on response um is about the same as uh School perceptions but their data is totally different um they'll start asking questions on the survey and then depending what the answer is they might go a little bit l a level deeper and find out what did you mean by that and so that they can gleam more information from the caller or from the person taking the survey survey lasts about 8 to 10 minutes and um then they collect all that data very similar to what perceptions does then and put it

065all in a pocket porse and so forth um they're highly regard Ed as one of the best in the state of Minnesota they do this constantly throughout the state um so it it's it's really not apples and oranges but um the phone survey is significantly different because they probe a little bit deeper than what a paper survey might do uh the the key to the whole thing is they're not cheap they're going to be double all right so from a timeline perspective I mean I think think given that we're missing two board members tonight and we don't have a looming shot clock on this the timetable is good it's good that we're having these conversations now we don't have to make a decision tonight it's not like we are behind the eightball suddenly if we

066don't um so I mean I think we have the option of you know at minimum I don't know that we want to kick it a whole I guess we kick it to the next board meeting for decision and I guess we could have Peter back if we want to or he could create some kind of virtual presentation for us but I don't love the Optics on that having one that's not in the public eye where only the board members would get it doesn't seem fair to me so I mean yeah I would agree with you but again remember we're not you saw the timeline he put up on his PowerPoint it's it's we don't really have to decide what we're going to do until like February really and they both had similar timelines so there

067was no difference there guess where my head goes is to essentially table this and then we can kind of regroup and set the agenda and decide if we want to let Mr Letterman come back in and show us his wees but I do think cost Consciousness is a big deal um and then to your point I love the idea that they will go beyond what the initial survey that that these guys do but in my mind we sort of already did that level of probing on with the Strategic plan sessions that we did last year so I'm not sure but that wasn't spending money though well what I'm saying is we gathered some of that same data that they yep yep yep yep okay I'm trying to I'm trying to rectify spending an extra $20,000

068right you know on asking two more questions after somebody says I don't like the pizza in the lunchroom you know and I don't mean to make light of it but I mean they're going to probe and they're going to go deeper under the surface of of of what that you know it's probably more something like well we I don't like the building well what about the building don't you like well the entrance well what about the entrance don't you like where the paper survey is what it is so at minimum I think we should see the presentation oh I agree I agree wholeheartedly and at least um DJ and John have the ability to go back and watch the recording of this board meeting and they can see what what what uh Darren presented I

069think that in my mind is the route to go do you think that's fine that's fine um because in the end I I mean I think we're going to lean into what you and Marcy end up really thinking I at least I will Mar and I have talked to me we're quite concerned about the cost especially in front of the public when we're going to ask them for money in 2025 than we doubling a cost for something that we can get cheaper it's just that doesn't make good Common Sense well and there's something to be said for again we've talked about this in other context that come up it came up when people are doing these phone surveys um you know I don't know what kind of buckets they're trying to fill demographically right because

070that presumes they have a database with phone numbers in it my I mean my phone number is not in a database that somebody's got access to how do you know that's the thing I mean that's an election year he's called me no no I'm not I'm not trying to be no that's what I'm saying is you would know because you get these calls and these text messages right um so if you put your cell phone number on your voter registration it's everywhere yeah and then if they're going to be calling I mean are they going to be calling landlines or they be calling cell phones most of it going to be cell phone because about 75% of the community has cell phone without landline yeah yeah y okay well we um so I mean we

071it's listed as an action item we did that on purpose when we were playing with the agenda we were first going to do this as informational and we decided to make it an action item in case we had a compelling two presentations and just wanted to move but obviously we we had two directors that didn't make it and one presenter that didn't make it so um I I I would say um for lack of a motion unless somebody wants to make a motion on this it can just sit there and then that effectively tables it I think until next meeting that's okay nobody makes a motion that's a no there's no motion so it's no longer an action item it's an action item that didn't get action on it that's correct okay okay so let's

072move along to the thank you Marcy let's move along to the next action item which is the approval of the ratification of the AFS CME interpreters contract for the 2024 25 school year and uh next year the 25 26 school year Andie Bennett evening I guess you're up here for a little while I'm up here for three items so I'll just knock them out really quick um the first one I believe is the asme is that what you had said What The Interpreter contract so I had sent you guys a little bit of a summary of what was changed for that the the salary scale is probably the biggest change for that we used to have three different components a non-certified a compliant and a certified we have now switched to non-certified and certified and

073kind of got rid of that compliance sector and I won't go through all the testing with you unless you really want to know on how we make those determinations we did do an increase um for both 24 25 and 2526 the other layer that we added on that is those who received the national interpreter certification from rid um get a stien similar to that of the national certification for teachers they get $1,000 um for the year as long as they hold that certification um the good news is uh this is our last non-exempt group to join true time so we are getting them on the true time to Now record their hours they're still being paid annualized but at least we'll have a really accurate Record of hours and overtime and such so we're really

074excited about that and then just some clean up really with language adding ESS all that good stuff I'll make a motion we approve the asme interpreters contract for 2425 and 2526 I'll second than we have a motion from director Breen with a second from director spear to approve the contract as present Ed any other questions for or discussion director just a a question uh Angie is this a budgeted item is it already in the budget or is this going to so this is not going to add to the any deficit right okay thank you any other discussion or question very none those in favor signify by saying I please iose same sign motion carries next up Angie is the approval of the ratification of the brainer principal and assistant principal Association for the 2024 25

075and 25 26 school years as presented yep so not a lot of significant changes in this contract we did do a a wage salary increase for both years um we did also add longevity payments um there was request for that and we were able to work that into it so if they're here for five years 10 years 20 years we're giving them additional incentive for longevity um increased 403b match for $500 per year and then it's just Language clean up after that and then I was involved in this too with Angie so you can correct anything I say that's maybe sure um basically the fits within the previously allocated budget dollars we just had to go back and forth a few times to kind of B bounce different numbers around and make it fit the

076way everybody felt was best so it doesn't add not nothing cool that was a question that I had so that that was answered I'll make a motion to approve a second so we have a motion from director spear with a second from director Breen to approve the principal assistant principales Association contracts for the next two school years any further discussion hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please I go same sign motion carries and next up is the approval and first Andor final reading of policy 722 public data and data subject requests so this policy was brought to the policy committee last month and we reviewed kind of the intent of it which is basically to be really transparent with the public and how we handle data requests um create a a consistent

077procedure um kind of give further explanation to the public of what we need in the requests how we're going to handle those requests any fees tied with such request so this is just um some additional explanation we've been following the majority of this the one area we did clarify more was the fees that we're associating with so can be applied consistently amongst any type of group or individual that request data perfect so I'll make a motion that we approve the first and final reading of msba policy 722 and 722 F okay all right so we have a motion from director Breen with a second from director Hyman to approve the motion as or the the policy as presented any further discussion again director Heyman and I um more you because I missed part of that

078meeting but I mean there was nothing particular just nice it's streamlining and adding more just Simplicity to make it easier for people understand how the process works and and more uh sunshine on on fees and stuff like that so people don't get shocked you know they want a data request and that's 20 Pages well you know that's GNA it's going to cost some money right it's just yeah so very good okay um all right so hearing no further discussion then uh those in favor signify by saying I please I I I post sign motion carries thanks Angie thank you all right next up is Dr stelmach with the approval of the resolution of establishing the backer Elementary School Forest I inspected it a couple of months ago there are no fairies or anything interesting it's

079just trees most Fu hoping for Hobbits or something all right well good evening and thank you for fitting us on I've got one of my teachers with me tonight um Blake alom he's a third grade teacher this year in my building and he's a member of our school Forest um committee so um he's here just to speak to some of the pieces that we feel like would be beneficial to have an establish a school forest and we met in May um you were at that one Kevin and I believe DJ was just to be talking through some of the benefits what are the pros and the cons of establishing a school for us and we really couldn't land on any cons and the benefits of a school Forest were many so we've gone through that

080research phase and put together a committee and we really believe that it would be um beneficial to our district to have Baxter Elementary School have a school Forest I was a part of the dean Macky School Forest when that came um about as a district and it really has the benefits are that there's some free education for staff um we will use the property as a school Forest either way but if you can become certified and declared as a school Forest there are the training benefits there are some resources that you have available our local Forester um Steve Barts um he will do um some drawings for us he'll do some there's a a word that's escaping me right now well he he'll put together he's already mapped it out but he puts together additional

081information on the space within the forest and Blake maybe could speak to some of the ways that we believe staff can get out and use that Outdoor Learning environment um yeah I I'm guess I'm new to this whole school Forest thing but envisioning of how I would use utilize that in a third grade classroom is kind of two different separate things the obvious one is a science-based I mean one of our units is plants and animals and instead of having to use digital resources I mean you we have access to that physical Hands-On learning right there whether we're viewing Birds whether we're looking at plants and identifying them so forth um and the school Force also provides you know a different environment for kids you know we're trapped in the classroom all winter it seems

082like in having a school Forest would give teachers that ability to take kids out and it doesn't necessarily have to be science based it could be going out there to read a book it could be going out there just to do a math assignment just changing that that venue for kids um I think is huge when you're thinking of uh social emotional and instead of just being in the classroom all the time it's giving kids a different environment of for Learning and that could be a huge benefit to some of our kids for sure I was actually at that presentation Dr stach when you um presented I think it was to the long the long range planning committee um but what I was really impressed with also was the Rel relationship with DNR and the

083educational opportunities that will be provided by that collaboration so that was I would say that's pretty huge too as somebody who as teachers who are kind of new to that and not sure how to utilize it to get that DNR service in to teach us how to best utilize it would be is really beneficial for sure I mean in nutshell it's getting free resources from not free but State resources that don't come out of the district coffers to augment a lot of things that we would like to do with property we already own and then uh Dr stach correct me if I'm wrong I just somebody brought this up to me and I just want to make sure I reiterate this for anybody that's watching we own the land it's designated as a school for

084us but if for some reason we suddenly had to build a garage or something on that land we're not precluded or limited from doing that right correct um there's no limitation on the use of the land as far as it goes no we own the land and right now Steve Barts has worked with us and you see it in the resolution that he's mapped out the the land markers for where the school Forest would be now we've got more land on that site that is our building and our parking lot and things like that so if we needed to change anything within the land denoted as a school Forest down the road the district has full access to do so because we own it what they would probably ask for is a simple addendum to

085the dimensions of the school forest and it might take out uh a path through it for example if we needed to put a or if we put a road on the North side where it's already semi cleared behind those buildings and you want to move it over if fo it would be a very easy agendum that Steve would probably very conveniently help us right it would just be changing the dimensions just slightly perfect so that when I went into that original meeting with you guys that was my biggest thing was the con I was looking for was what happens if something changes and now we've got all these designations and the state government's somehow involved and all this but the reality is it's still our space right um we had um correct me or refresh

086who came in and cut those Trails for us yes we have a family member at landworks as a local business and they do have a representative on you can see the members of our school Forest committee so they are parents that serve in the capacity of our PTO representative as well as I believe landworks Jeff would probably know better than myself but I think landworks does some of like our sweeping or our stuff in sidewalks and so they graciously donated um their services for very nominal fee to PTO to cut through forests in the land so great fact I got to go walk through amazing and what we've always said is we're going to use the land because we own it either way if we choose to move forward and the application is ready for

087a school Force then there's some benefits and some training we get along with it but we plan to use the land because we own it so if that makes sense uh director Heyman look like you might add a question yeah uh we control the we control it the forest correct okay uh is there any possibility of the state coming in and saying you know what you got to do this you got to do that you got to spend some money do this do that I mean any kind of unfunded mandates that we're going to get from the state that we can think of the absolute worst thing that could happen is we cut all the trees down and the DNR pulls our state forest or our school Forest designation because there ain't no Forest well

088yeah that's very true okay from liability standpoint is it possible to build some fire pits out there so in the winter time the kids can go out there and you know have a hot dog roast or sit around I mean I'm just thinking out loud because we talk about we did do that at Forest View um back in you know I mean when I was there and I haven't been there for a while but there was a protocol and a procedure for that we had an outdoor learning experience and it was just that it was about fire it was safety um you know those are middle school kids eighth grade I've got k but that would be we'd have to have some policy I me I wouldn't just be having people build a fire without

089coming Peter and Carrie and people first but I mean is it a possibility Randy yes and we did do it at Forest Feld but it would be I mean to me it would be a classroom type of a situation where there' be teachers out there and maybe even some parents yes I think that would be fantastic where they can get out of the classroom and uh have some fun yes roasting some hot dogs or what do you call that uh with uh gra crackers and chocolate schores yeah schmor yeah so yeah no thank you the last piece I would share is we have the connection with Steve Barts the local DNR person and then Laura duffany from the state level and she attended our meeting as well um in May she would be the one

090that would help set up a variety of trainings and things that are available to us but she really framed it for us in a way that expanded it past our vision of having kids learn as Blake said just about nature it's really the goal of a school Forest is to have it be an outdoor learning environment and any subject could be learned out there so you could bring your set of classroom clipboards out there and bring a writing assignment and rejuvenate maybe the creativity you know of outside of a classroom or you might be just stuck a little bit so the object is to see it as an outdoor learning environment and not just you know we are only going to identify trees out there and you had also addressed at that meeting that other

091elementary schools would have access to the forest as well it would just be sort of a transportation a field trip or a bus over and then we made notes to say that we certainly wouldn't ever step on or be in the way of right now we all plant kindergarten trees at the middle school and that's an established piece that would continue okay third grade goes to the Planetarium and takes a visit back to see their school tree and that's established and in place and it gets them to see the mid school that they'll attend later on that would all stay in place but if a site wanted to come and say could we have a day or a half a day in your Forest of course I'll make a motion to approve the resolution establishing

092the Baxter Elementary School Forest second okay all right we have a motion from director spear with a second from director Hyman to approve the or to vote on the resolution do we have any further discuss hearing none this is a roll call vote okay Bo yes chel Breen yes Randy Hyman yes Sarah spear yes all in favor thank you Dr stach and thank you sir very nice to meet you question about order do we should we be doing roll call votes for all these today because we don't have a full no only if you have a have a quum we're good unless you have virtually attending board member and then you have to do all just a question thank you good question all right next up is the approval of the sourcewell contract for the

0932425 school year don't think you missed one oh what did I miss oh I'm sorry adopt the resolution relating to the election of Schoolboard members and calling the school district general election it's kind of an important so uh this is a regular action by the board every time you hold an election um regardless of what kind of election it's going to be and the board is responsible for setting the resolution telling the public that they're going to conduct an election this one of course will be for new board members possibly or incumbents being reelected you'll see the uh ballot which will be completed once um tomorrow is over with because tomorrow is the last day to register or to apply for candidacy and and once that's done and then it goes to print and it's

094something then then we work with the county on to prepare for the November election so moved second we have a motion from director Heyman with a second from director Breen on the uh resolution related to the election of Schoolboard members any discussion hearing none this is also a roll call vote Michelle Breen yes Randy heidman yes s spear yes Kevin Bo yes all right now we'll go to the approval of the sourcewell contract for the 2425 school year right um Source well as you know uh provides a tremendous amount of help to the district a lot of it is in most of it is in teacher development and so forth uh it's a partnership that we have with them in order for us to provide services for our teachers and our students um school districts

095throughout the entire state of Minnesota are part of some type of a uh organization that does this type of assistance for the school districts um technically I don't think we could make it without them to be honest with you there's a lot of things we wouldn't be able to do so um and I know this has been uh a relationship that the district has had for some time um if you're concerned about uh what it costs is at the very end um and to be honest with you um we get a lot more out of it than what we put into it for financial support for them it's a great opportunity for the district it's a great opportunity for our teachers and our other staff and then of course in the end it's a benefit

096for our students so um I would highly recommend that the board approve this agreement with sourcewell so I yeah I well this is a sticky procedural question yes that's what I thought I think we're I I I think we're going to have to table it because director spear has to abstain oh you need a quorum for that we and we need a quorum we don't have four votes for it that's right we should have thought I should have thought about that and pulled it off the agenda for tonight so it's going to have to sit until next meeting hopefully that doesn't create new is that going to create a problem I don't by waiting till the next I don't know I don't think so Terry okay no issues with that okay then we really don't

097have any choice it pretty much has to be tabled with for lack of a motion again for lack of a Corum correct that a good point yeah good point well yeah unless you your job right now you call it in I'm done yeah I don't think so all right moving on approval to purchase partial number 81320 52 uh the high school Farm property from Crowing County as presented by uh Marcy and Jeff come on up shiny director of buildings and grounds you don't you don't I can't recall in four years ever having seen you in the hot seat before Jeff this is I've been here I wish this was something more contentious so we could Grill you a little bit I'm open so just have at it he was super excited yeah so this has

098been a discussion item for you guys previously we did go back with the county um thank you to director Ward because he went and talked to or did public comment and um we were able to purchase the 40 acres so this document before you is the purchase price and then with with your approval we'll process the check and the property will be ours so just a quick Amendment too um there were actually three board members involved in kind of getting this over the Finish Line um I was one of them not that that matters but director dond Dinger did some leg work on this as well so I don't want to let that pass without noting but um clearly the the tide turned and this got where we wanted it to get to in the

099county was extraordinarily um congenial and good to work with once um once John explained our situation and opened that door up so director Ward wherever you are thank you for going in there and doing that so to your point Marcy thank you sorry that I will make a motion that we approve the purchase of parcel number eight well whatever that parcel number is of the high scho property from cro County I'll second all right so we have a motion from director breham with a second from director spear to approve the purchase of the property from the county further discussion the one thing I forgot to add is this is coming from the excess construction funds which cannot be used for staff or Personnel so just make that clear corre thank you that's what I was

100going to ask and the other thing just for the benefit again for those watching was the original proposal was there was 80 acres in play the county wanted us to buy all 80 acres or however that worked out originally this proposal is now to buy 40 we didn't feel like um you know not fixing sidewalks to buy 40 acres of trees was in the best interest of the school district and again our five County Commissioners and uh Deb Ericson who's the the county uh administrator um found a way to get it done for us in a way that worked for everybody so again we we want to express our heartfelt gratitude to Crowing County because it it draw this thing Drew out longer than it needed to and mistakes were made on both sides but

101it it we learned from it and everybody's good so yep um good work on this Mars he and Jeff work yeah thank you came it at the perfect time it's like it's like they got it to the one yard line you get to carry it across all right hearing no further discussion those in favor oh sorry director Hyman Mar how many acres do we actually use out there of the 40 that's why he's up here I would say approximately three three or less at the as of right now yeah okay our main buildings on there the only reason I ask is who knows down the road maybe we have the ability to sell 20 of the 40 always a possibility yeah I mean so cool three acres yeah so a lot of work to do

102yeah yeah excellent any further discussion questions commentary hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I I those in favor same time motion carries we just bought 40 acres thank you thank you all right next up we have the discussion approval to change the November 18th 2024 Schoolboard meeting to November 12th or hold a special Schoolboard meeting to Canvas election results from the uh November election it is also on November 12th is that a typo or is that you have to have the results by November 12 okay so the election like the fifth or sixth or something you have to Canvas them the 15th okay so it doesn't have to be the 12th technically it could be the 13th sure um again just from from from my perspective the the easiest thing

103seemed to be to move the Schoolboard meeting if calendars were amendable to it um mine is works for me yeah to move it to the 18th no to move it to the 12th from the 18th yes to squeeze that in by the deadline oh we don't have to have a special well it sounds like a quorum so and I I actually I did talk to both directors and Don linger I don't think they had a problem with that either things can obviously come up but I'll make a motion to change the November 18th meeting to November 12th all second so we have a motion from director spear with a second from director Breen to move the regular school board meeting from November 18th to November 12th to Canvas election results is there any further discussion

104hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please I hi hi oppose same sign motion carries that is it for action items for tonight we have a one policy committee meeting update from director Hyman and we have a meeting uh Wednesday another one coming another one yeah yeah we talked uh we talked about uh policy 722 the public data so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that we're going to be retiring uh policy 560 which will be moved into uh policy 809 with uh talking about naming rights for school buildings and uh grounds Etc uh cell phone policy discussion um I believe we're at the point where uh we're going to start the year with current policy and question no it's a statement uh just don't no U which means

105we're going to enforce no cell phones in the classroom during instructional hour and then when we come back in uh more more meetings but uh when the kids come back after Christmas break uh we'll be having a discussion about no cell phones at all with students it's been a while since I've had this many Costco and grocery store conversations about a topic at the Schoolboard level as I have about this oh yeah but the other cool thing is about it they're low temperature conversations you know it's not um but there's definitely a lot of interest out there oh yeah oh yeah um you know and then again just for the benefit of those that don't get to have these conversations that we get to have the whole point in delaying a policy full Pol District

106level policy revision until October or November is to buy time to look at what some districts around the country are already doing where they're attempting to implement full day banss um I know on this board we have you know some schools of thought around one versus the other um from my own point I want to see what happens with you know more of these districts that go ahead of us over the next two or three months and try to implement both versions of this and then we can walk around and look at where you know where they yeah ran into a tree and where they found open space and probably learn a lot on how we craft what we do with um when we when we do 524 and then we'll probably Sunset 540 which

107is the cell phone policy that's referred to in most of the building handbooks today like all the elementary schools point to I think all of them do yeah and so we're going to Sunset that and just have 524 be the governing policy but um the public may be surprised that we don't actually alter that too much leaving it more to the the administrative team to um make fluid decisions based on what working what's not working at the building levels so more to come on that thanks Randy yeah the biggest challenge I mean I've seen a lot of different news articles a lot of small schools are going to be instituting no cell phone at all throughout the school but you know there are 400 kids in K through 12 we're looking at 1,800 so I

108mean to me our challenge is what are we going to do with storage how are we going to handle the cell phones so that more to come obviously uh buling we talked about safe and supp support of school plan uh getting parents and guardian legal Guardians involved with that discussion uh we're going to update some language with our joint Powers agreement with the City of Baxter um just to let people know we work with the city of Baer in for some Recreation programs and we have a joint Powers agreement that needs to be updated and no big deal there it's just removing some old language and we'll be having legal council review that I believe as well and then we discussed a strategic plan for uh gii zbi uh as far as maybe putting together

109something uh for how we want to operate and you know looking at fees Etc so end the report okay well thank you very much that brings us to director lordon The Business Services report I just feel like if you have to walk from the back of the room there should be like play on music that could be kind of fun um bring a speaker to the next so in your report as noted last month there is no financial report this month because it's the June which won't be ready until the audit is complete and then our enrollment report obviously we won't have our first report until next month so we started this report I think it was three years ago where we summarized the data from the state on non-resident resident students um I I'm

110just going to preface that I you know don't have all the wise they go the places they go but this is a nice format just so you guys can kind of see a number so the first page is the non-residents which means the um students that are not in our district but come here and um we always have a rolling 10 years so the column that was added this year was the 2223 column and the very top is total adms for 424 are coming in and that's tuition and options and then the next chart below that is options broken out so where are they coming from and I highlight the uh districts that are greater than 10 ADM so you'll see pillagers the first one Crosby peat and then Onamia are the are the ones

111that we're pulling from the most just a quick summary on that one um and then there are differences because of the data that we pulled the timing of it so you'll notice at the bottom the total non-resident ADM for this year's 34650 but up on the top the summary is 372 so it's a it's the difference in timing so it's not exact but it's just so you guys have data on where from and then the next report is the re residents enrolled elsewhere meaning they're in our district but they're going to other places the very top again is the summary by totals so Charter options elsewhere tuition we have about 9 79.6 uh residents that are going elsewhere and in 2223 again I highlight any adms that are over 10 in yellow and then the

112orange are over 10 um and are an online school so for Charters we have the Minnesota transitions Charter School Cross Lake Pillager and Discovery Woods as the top ones and then the options elsewhere is aen Pillager Crosby ironon peat um Houston which is an online school which is why it's odd it's it sticks out to me um onia Little Falls and piers and then very bottom Pine River is also up there so we have about 685 if you're rounding residents that leave our district to go to other um schools do you have the reverse number for outside ones that come here that same that's the first one okay y but I mean what are those in terms of amilies or you know I always ask that question as far as as far as the non

113ADM the what is that looks like from um so you did ask that last year and I did ask Sue and she said that that would be very difficult to come up with that number so yeah sorry that's adms aren't that far off they are a little bit off yes at uh next question you might not have this data available do we have an updated kindergarten enrollment well as of today we we do but the numbers are still floating a little bit we're still working on trying to balance between the schools um seat counts um I was able to call some parents I two of them agreed to move from um Harrison yes to L so we could lower that but we still have work to do at Harrison but um you know we won't

114really know until the first day you know until you see who shows up what what's rough kindergarten number as of today uh she's in Kelly's got my it's okay if you don't have it I I just was curious last I heard it was like 422 no no I think it's in the threes 3:34 okay okay any other questions for mercy on the business services thank you thank you thank you thanks Marcy I guess and we are down to superintendent Report with um lots of things are happening right now with our our staff example today and tomorrow our new teachers are in um I think there were 26 in the room this morning and um you know I told them about what it was like when I was my first day as a teacher and I

115didn't get any training like they're getting today it was I'm surprised what happened 30 years years ago or whatever but um it's really it's really exciting to have our new staff come in and they're getting acquainted with each other so to speak but they're getting a lot of support from the building principals from car's office um it's just uh you know they're they're a little bit nervous a little bit tense because everything's new but um I told them that the most important thing is don't be afraid to ask for help because you don't know anything and if you don't ask and nobody knows you don't know if you don't ask so but it's really good to see that get started um the plcs were meeting last week uh we're just we're getting to it's kind

116of like in Drag Racing you know have you ever been to bi when they smoke the tires and then back up to get ready for the race right now we're smoking the tires so to speak so we can get ready to race on on the on the last week in August where everybody comes together and then of course we get ready for the first day of school but there's um lots and lots of people doing lots of work right now as staff to get them thinking about um what we need to do to be successful and working in their building teams and so forth their leadership teams so as I've been watching this um it's good to hear the conversations about what their goals are going to be for their building goals and um what

117the principles are doing to help their staff um because this isn't a oneman show and it it it is literally it takes a team to make this work and um and it it it it doesn't stop just when school starts it's a year-long process and um it's if you could come and see what's going on I think you'd be very impressed about all the people that are doing their best to get the program started on the first day of school so that you know our business things starts working with the kids coming in um talking to the parents um some of them for the kindergarten for example um they are really hesitant to move but as I talked to them about well you could have your students in a smaller class setting and they start

118thinking but it's an emotional thing before anything else so they have to let that ride a little bit before they're going to come back and say I think I can do this so um I'm still going to be calling trying to move some kids but um again we really don't know what's going to happen until they come across the threshold of the door and then you know we may have to make adjustments from there but uh we're we're going in the right direction and I'm looking forward to the last week of August when everybody comes in and that's when all the action really starts to happen as far as ramping up for the first day of school great thank you right the last section is the uh Direct dor update section we'll start out uh

119anybody have anything they'd like to dor h i do uh what I'd like to propose for future board meetings is I'd like to have a presentation uh regarding CIP goals for each of the buildings uh not necessarily for uh 24 25 but that would be nice to know what I'd like to know and I think the community deserves to know this as well uh what were the goals for 2324 did we meet the goals if we didn't meet the goals what do we need to change do we need to look at curriculum do we need a teacher development training uh student Behavior cell phones uh and then what are the CIP building go building goals for 2425 uh I was reading the MDA report card for 23 24 will be released after the November election

120so we won't know anything as far as uh MCAS and things like that until probably presumably sometime in probably December of 24 shouldn't be true because they're not going to release the data I think well right now they're embargoed huh they're embargoed we can't release them yet according to the mde when they that schools can start looking at them but correct won't be allowed for the public to see for a while correct correct know what the date for that is exactly well I read an article where it said that and you can always trust what an article says right I uh legislatively they passed something this year that uh they weren't going to release the data publicly until after the election results somebody can can do their own research but that's what I read director

121Ross do you have any additional Insight on that yeah we're fact cheing right now okay thank you um and I think the district Community I think we need they deserve the public deserves to see these numbers good bad or indiff and I'm not here throwing darts at anybody or anything like that because we're all in this together the board Administration and teachers we're all in this together and it's not blaming anyone it's accountability who are we accountable to parents Etc so I think it's important that for future meetings at least some sort of presentation about some of these goals from 23 to 24 did we meet them why didn't we meet him things like that well tell me a little bit more about what that looks like because you're talking about every board meeting no

122no no no I'm not talking about every board meeting okay so explain that to me like me at least you know so I well I personally believe there we should have interim assessments and I don't know if we do interim assessments looks like we have some information on the uh MCA embargo we looked up on on the MD website uh data is embargoed until August 29th oh okay so they're going to release it August 29th so generally speaking that's how it always works it's released the day that's what we have the day of the new staff or the staff welcome back and then okay yep and then just um as a general piece of information for all of you we did the CIP Retreat a little bit differently this year um and what we did

123at the CIP retreat was ask everybody to um create slides for a board presentation that includes their goals last year if they met those goals and their goals for this year um so those are ready um for all of the sites you were reading my mind that's a scary thought Randy I know it is pretty sure a pupp just died somewhere but it but it is something that I'm I'm somewhat passionate about because mean we're here to educate kids and how are we how do we measure well I would say the principles are pretty excited about the work that their leadership teams did the last few couple of days last week as well um uh superintendent Grant was there it was really fun to see their teams working together in the new format that uh

124they had put together and so we have not come up with a structure for that to happen yet um but we'll work with um admin to make a plan and superintendent Grant can get back to you with options and it's ready to go yeah and what would also be nice and I don't know if this should be a board presentation or a board retreat item fast Bridge giving us a you know I've had presentations because I've asked well I'm also on the district advisory committee so director Spear and I have a little bit inside uh on some of that information as far as what's going on with fastbridge but uh if you could explain to the board or even at a retreat whatever it's to me it's somewhat easy to extract data yeah I will

125I will ask the chair and the superintendent to give direction to edmin and we'll come up with the plan and be happy to share that with you after we do our uh data collection this year yeah it's a worthy point to bring up on the CIP stuff too I mean but they're already working on it I think it's um maybe what I would do is figure out what committee that best lives in to kind of structure that to bring to the board yeah that in the past has gone through the district advisory committee we get access to all so that feels like the logical place to kind of craft it in a method that's you know not gargantuan and creates you know I mean I think what we're trying to do is streamline these meetings

126to the point where you know we're not doing too many of these 72 page PowerPoint presentations right well maybe if it's maybe if it's like one or two schools per meeting or something like that where they can share information I don't know but uh I know uh again director Spear and I we were privy to the district CIP plan for last year we were given documents for that and whatnot so when the overall CIP is presented to the board right after it's minted back earlier in the year as part of the world's best I me we see that corre what we don't see is what to your point I think what you're trying to say is we're not seeing how we're tracking against that we just see how it how it looks when it's launched

127or modified yeah and they do they did release the uh 2024 world's best Workforce legislative report I have a copy of that right here and uh we got some work to do that's for sure but uh again I'm not throwing darts I'm not throwing we're all in this together and we are a team uh we all wear Warrior blue and uh well somewh wor blue I don't know about you that's like this is this is darn close but uh I just think that is something that it's nice to know what's going on and uh I think the public deserves it as well not just the board but uh so I've taken enough time I just as long as Carrie as long as you're there I oh sure and looking at this document that Marcy gave

128us about the residents enrolled elsewhere is there a way that we can collect some data about why some of these residents are going to some of these other districts yeah I don't know that there's an ideal way to do it once they've left um because it that's harder to do and we have talked about options as folks might have a change in plan um or maybe even why they're open and rolling and coming to do some more intentional data collection um we've just started having those preliminary conversations um but you can certainly give direction to the superintendent and he can ask us to do some more of those things we've just been a little busy with new teachers and things lately so we haven't gotten very far with those things absolutely um but there have

129some pre been some preliminary conversations about it would be nice to have some more specific data rather than just maybe notes that have been jotted when people have shared right you would certainly want that to be part of the survey yeah no question about it great yeah yeah well I mean this is a byproduct too director Breon of a collective Board of six people with 15 years of board experience and an interim superintendent and an executive director of schools that's how many months into the role uh two months there we go so what we're I completely understand where I was going with it was that um we two years ago we had part of some of the uh some of the uh money that we got the covid money that we got we we were

130able to put into specifically there was a it was earmarked for uh lost enrollment and and stuff like that so we did like surveys we did go out and Survey okay as part of a pre the pre-work that we did prior to the kind of District marketing campaign that was underway at that point that was when we went out and did some radio ads and did some different things to try to boost enrollment two two school years ago um I mean I think it was if I think it's generous to call it mixed results on how that went I think we learned a lot about what not to do and it'll be interesting to see I think it can dovetail nicely with what we're going to do with the with the study um but I

131also know um it's been a couple years since I spent time but I know that certain specifically Elementary School principles if they lose a student they call those parents and they they they're they're pretty good um I know that Sheila was really great about it when she was over at River side Todd was great when he was at L I believe Dr stelmach is really good about doing that she kind of knows if you go ask her she probably knows where most of her kids went that didn't come back um but I think to your point creating a more structured way of trying to analyze that instead of just looking at it as numbers on a spreadsheet is is because that's to me that's why the the headcounts so much more important than the ADM

132thing is for me because I'm trying to visualize it as people not as as funding formula numbers that plug into an equation even though they're not that different they're it still somehow makes more sense when you're not looking at three children for some reason thank you you're welcome thank you so tell Sue she doesn't have to run it and I'm not trying to kill her I was or Marcy you can tell her I just I always want that number and I never never get it I'm never going to get it any other director updates well in the absence of additionals so we see all the future meetings uh outlined here we do have Personnel benefits committee meeting Wednesday just realized I'm I'm not working I guess on Wednesday I'm a Schoolboard guy on Wednesday and

133then policy and community relations meeting at 1:30 here at wesby new teacher orientation and breakfast on the 19th facilities meeting on the 21st also student Support Services a lot of committee stuff before we get school rolling here Forest views open houses on the 27th at 4:30 and all the elementaries plus BHS and LEC at 4:30 the 28th then we have the big old welcome back at the G zibi um working on my 45 minute presentation for that good and uh finance committee meeting on the September 19th after the first day of school on the uh board meet and greet so some of us are out of town we got that all sorted out though didn't we Kelly everybody knows where they're going or will will Y and then our next regularly scheduled school board meeting

134is not until September 23rd so that said I think that covers all of that and I would entertain a motion to adjourn second director hey was a little faster on the draw we'll give him the motion to adjourn seconded by director reckon any discussion hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please hi I oppos same sign motion carries we are adjourned e