001181 School Board to order uh let's begin with a roll call please Janet Kevin Bo here Michelle Breen here DJ doninger here Randy Hyman here Sarah spear here John Ward here all present thank you uh please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance 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 and now director Ward will be singing the National Anthem yeah I like the addition I make a motion okay all right we do have uh Amendment to the agenda for tonight Janet refresh me of the one committee meeting okay personel committee cancel yeah Personnel committee meeting was cancelled which would have been under UHS yeah under future meetings number 13 other than that
002the agenda is as was posted last week so looking for a motion please so moved I'll second we have a motion from director spear with a second from director Breen any discussion hearing none all those in in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign motion carries all right next up our recognitions we have any volunteers to come to the mic start off John y Mr chair I'm John Ericson I am the archivist for Brer public schools and I'm here this evening in that capacity uh approximately um two weeks 3 weeks ago I received an email from the uh children of Betty Alderman who I knew from my many years living in this community and going to school with them as well uh the email brought to my attention an offer to give to
003the brainer Public Schools a piano and the piano off was conditioned upon the need to remove it from the Betty Alderman home which was being emptied for purposes of sale at a closing to occur the following Wednesday uh this is a piano that is requires a little bit movement down a set of steps and uh fairly larger than the ordinary piano and so I immediately contacted those that I who I report to in the school district including the superintendent um Brian stubs and Tim catlet uh and asked if this was something that should be pursued and was told that I should pursue it uh to a point at least to see if we could actually pull off this um transfer this was a challenge for us because the closing was a drop dead closing on
004the following Wednesday morning uh we were able to arrange through the efforts of um um uh any number of people agreeing that this should happen um and through the particular efforts of Jeff fayton from buildings and grounds to arrange for the transport through people who are accustomed to moving pianos and so we were able to move it out of the house which had been emptied of everything else everything else in the house was gone this was the last item in the house and if there was anything left in the house it was going to go to the seller so the piano was pretty important in Betty Alderman's life she was a singer uh she participated in vocal uh Productions in the brainer public schools and around the city for 60 some years she's now 98
005years old and has not living in the home anymore people may remember her as a uh very astute businesswoman part of the alderman hardware store in downtown Brainard prior to its sale pardon me burning down but she was real Giver in in the sense of the community and so with this uh we were able to move the piano out of the house an hour before closing and move it down the street and into the gishe Z Lobby and now on the screen is a picture of the piano uh at its new home this is a 1940 chering it's about 80 some years old uh it has a value of some $40,000 it is in excellent condition and will be available in the lobby of the gz uh not for people to walk up to and
006play it's too valuable for casual plunking away at the the Chopsticks tunes on the piano but it will be a a great great a compliment to those who may wish to have a reception or some event in the lobby itself the Pickering was built by pardon me the chering this is a problem I've had with this piano from the beginning it's a baby grand and it was built by the chering company um in 1940 uh and it has um had only really one owner that we're aware of and that is Betty ol man and the alderman family so we're very fortunate to have this particular instrument thanks to Betty Alderman who her children want to be remembered for this gift of Brer Public Schools um other than that I have nothing further great thank you
007John you're welcome good evening I'm Tammy stomach principal at back Elementary School I'm reading two celebrations tonight one of them on behalf of Molly rasy from niswa elementary congratulations to niswa Elementary they led a sotober campaign this year and rocked it they collected 821 socks payers I'm assuming they've collected over 6,486 socks since 2015 the socks are delivered to the um Lakes area women's shelter and then also to the Brainard high school and and they want to make a note that they know that everyone deserves um new socks when the season gets cold and then my other celebration is from backra elementary school congratulations to one of my EAS Kelly Hansen for receiving um being nominated as a semi-finalist for the Education Minnesota support person of the year um I've nominated people for many many
008years for that award so I'm really thrilled that one of my nominees got selected this year there were five finalists and four semi-finalists chosen out of all of the nominees throughout the state so it's really a very prestigious award and what I would say about Mrs Hansen is she goes above and beyond um each and every day in her role as an EA working with children that have needs at bter elementary school covering the nurse's office and then she's our lead person on the parent pickup line and we load anywhere from 248 to 350 kids a day and she's out there rain um sleet and below zero weather um leading that charged with the walk calling in names so we appreciate her and this was quite the honor she attended the award ceremony on October
00928th so thank you all right good evening Jim Conrad principal at Harrison Elementary and just wanted to share some uh October students of the month that we had last month at our Warrior gathering at the end of October uh our students of the month were Keith Oswald Mason Shai Sylvia Franzen Willa crego Carter rice Felicity geisenhoff McKenna Conroy ven Tomy Carter scutnik Emma hbling Jackson Reed Tatum gin Eddie Gorman Eon Erikson Ella Tang wall William Rob Allison Wang MJ wiland Ivy Morales and Sophia Anderson they all did a wonderful job showing preparedness at school giving their best effort and being all around wonderful students great thanks Jim nice Victory Monday wardrobe there too thank you good evening everyone on behalf of Brainard high school and uh activities director Mr Freeman and myself we would like
010to congratulate the to congratulations to the war Warrior girls tennis team for being sex 8A Champions and a State team qualifier lla Collins placed second at the section singles tournament and she was also a state qualifier Claire erdal and Erica folden were the Section 8 doua doubles tournament champions and also state qualifiers Mr Freeman and I went down and and cheered them on at State and uh it was very very exciting to see our girls tennis team return congratulations to our Warrior girls cross country team they finished as the Section 8 AAA section Place second place in state qualifiers congratulations to CrossCountry Runner Ben Ben State statam who was a Section 8 AAA individual State qualifier congratulations to tennis coach Lisa Salo for being selected as the 8aa girls tennis coach of the year and
011also congratulations to cross country coach Casey Miller for being selected as the 8 triaa girls cross country assistant coach of the year that's it from BHS thank you Andrea all right that covers all of that we will move on to public input so I will read my little thingy that we have to read before we do public input every time public in input is at the time for a member of the public to address the board comments will be limited to 3 minutes complaints or allegations against students or employees may not be discussed due to data privacy complaints or allegations must be submitted in writing to superintendent Han the Board of Education and superintendent will not converse with guests to address the topics discussed at this time so going uh Doug Kern y up first
012sir I thought the lighting being turned down was mood lighting I kind of just just for a second there uh the policy 606 631 special meeting I really appreciated that you guys had that meeting um concerning the conversation I love the conversation back and forth um State policy State statutes school policy was were discussed uh concerning presenting pornographic material to that was discussed as it has been in the past uh the discussion was very good the thing that's concerning to me is how much pornography material pornographic material each grade level should have um to me all the adults in the room should have said none but uh that's time for another discussion so um when the next meeting is of this it's I assume I got to leave here in just a minute but I'll
013be listening to the meeting and and uh see when the next meeting is for this discussion so thank you thanks for having that meeting thanks dou Shirley jger please Ione sure Mark olssen then thank you Mark Olsen uh brainer Minnesota Proverbs 12:17 says a righteous man declares the open truth but an unjust witness is deceitful I've been attending these board meetings for well over three years and the second half of that proverb has been on display many times do we all make mistakes and miss the mark absolutely we do we should not be doing it intentionally though on many occasions the comments and actions of the administration and board have been less than truthful first there was no CRT then Mass were good for children then you say some pornography in the library books is
014good if it is limited then you insist that we the people adhere to policy 606 but on numerous instances you refuse to follow it yourselves then when a library book is challenged you stack the deck with the District employees to serve on the committee all while pushing a phony narrative that the process is fair and truthful the resource committee elected a chair but the chair was never given an opportunity to run the meeting the director of teaching and learning controlled the meeting and once again policy 606 was given a backseat to the process next you tell us you're going to work on 606 and make it better but what happened at that particular 4-Hour meeting the superintendent and director of teaching and learning once again ran the show instead of simplifying the process you now
015make it even more difficult to challenge inappropriate Library resources this is nothing but stacking in the deck to take advantage to your whole woke agenda a Community member provided a brief policy to use Place 606 and I understand zero attention was given to it at the meeting if you are going to call yourself Educators you might want to reexamine and claim and thoroughly apply it to your own action then District 181 will be a better place to improve the suffering reading and math scores policy 606 should simply be stated if garbage comes in garbage goes out then the extraordinary amount of time you've taken on this poor policy could have been better used more effectively for students you claim to care about thank you very much uh Rick felt please my name is Rick Fel
016Briner Minnesota and I'm a thousand years old now that statement probably made you laugh but there is absolutely no scientific test that you can do on a living body to prove its age you have to really go by a birth certificate and then I could even argue that maybe I am not that person on that birth certificate maybe I stole somebody's identity the problem today is that there's deception that takes many different forms when I went into the army and I saw the horrors of War when I was serving my country I really needed to know if God was real and if salvation was really true and if if there was a heaven and a hell because I'll tell you one thing in the in the in the films that I witness in the in
017the military I saw the absolute horrors of evil and that convinced me without a shadow of a doubt that there is evil in this world so I actually began a real intense study of the Bible and I've been studying it for over 50 years and I'll be honest with you when I first started studying it I really couldn't believe some of the Miracles that were listed in there I really did believe that it was a book of fairy tales but the more I studied the Bible and the more that I actually did my own research I found without conclusive evidence with conclusive evidence that the Bible is indeed true now within the last 20 years we've actually had two men that were actually swallowed by a whale for three days and live to tell about
018it their stories are published on the on the internet if you don't believe me you can look it up yourself we actually have conclusive evidence now that they found over four miles of Chariots in the Red Sea where they cross they actually have evidence right now in on the on the sea where they crossed it tells us there was a pillar of fire and and it had two Ines of glass it takes 3,200 de to to melt sand into glass so that Pillar of Fire was over 3200 de it's 2 in thick and it's still there today 5,000 years later they found that they when they pulled out the Chariot axles and wheels and and and looked at them in the archives from the pyramids of Egypt they found that they maxed identical to the
019ones that were in there my point is this if God is real we just pledged allegiance to one nation under God and everything but at least six people that are in positions of power right now have absolutely no fear of the Lord Jesus Christ has over 330 prophecies that were that were prophesied 800 years before he was born that he fulfilled while his time on Earth so I my question to you is this if God is real are you going to stand before him and and and when he asked you why did you allow those books to be in there I believe these books are evil and you're have to stand before him someday and you're going to have to give an account you're going to have to look him in the eye and you're
020going to have to tell him and the other point I'd like to make is this really the Legacy that you want to leave thanks Rick that's three minutes have a good evening Shirley Jagger please this year I became aware of an issue plaguing our whole country the realization that sexually explicit and other types of controversial materials have invaded the school libraries I decided to get involved I want to publicly thank PR principal John Anderson and media specialist Robin kuden for willingly removing a number of books from the Forest View M School library so we didn't have to file nearly as many complaints but the work isn't finished the school board is writing a new library policy polic policy 631 a breakaway policy from 606 it covers just Library materials I have reviewed the first draft
021I was surprised at some of the content this D district has been hemorrhaging students for several years now and there are valid reasons for it this new policy is going to tell the public what direction you are heading do you have our kids best interest at heart or not I am going to point out one thing I read read in the new policy draft there is a statement under Roman numeral 5 Section B called SE selection of Library materials it says it will use other sources to help choose books for the libraries and then it says this may include reputable material reviews publisher catalogs vendor databases award lists appropriate review Services all identified by the American Library Association these all these sources will be recommended by the Ala I want the public to hear some
022published information about the Ala the president Emily drabinsky has openly described herself as a Marxist les lesbian at the socialism 2023 conference in Chicago she asked attendees to turn schools and libraries into centers of radical agitation drabinsky believes libraries play a part in the what she calls a public project of raising children and plans to use her queerness to subvert normal family types and denounce in her words the crystal fascist just right I don't have a problem with being a lesbian I have a problem with it being forced on those who aren't inclined this policy is listing the Ala as a primary source for choosing books I believe the Ala agenda goes against the values of most people in this community and I would venture to say that if this District continues in this direction
023it may Hemorrhage a lot more students thank you thank you Rachel Cohen please good evening I'm a concerned brainer Citizen and taxpayer who loves children and I'm confident that you all do too this board tends to use state provided policies and plans I just like to read a short quote from the Minnesota Department of Education summary of their strategic plan quote the Minnesota Department of Education strategic plan is student centered and anchored in equity diversity and inclusion it strives to remove barriers to Student Success eliminate systemic racism promote anti-racist and anti-bias practices throughout School communities expand opportunities enhance family caregiver Guardian engagement etc etc unquote are there some fundamental education educational topics missing from that summary where are the vital topics such as writing reading history or mathematics is this following a Marxist agenda it
024has been claimed that there's no such thing as critical race Theory being taught yet the bulk of the state strategic plan focuses on just that race and identity there also seems to be an in inordinate inordinate amount of focus on the sexualization of our children in public education as has been demonstrated many times at previous school board meetings do you realize that the veil has been lifted and that everyone can see what is going on here citizen awareness taxpayer awareness has been heightened we are tired of funding our own demise think I'm crazy CS Lewis said once when the whole world is running towards a cliff he who is running the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind thank you ddy Smith please um good evening uh Shirley Jagger and I had nothing to
025do with each other with what we drew up here although we really ran parallel uh Emily dreb itssky she is a president of the American Library Association she D described herself at a recent conference as a Marxist lesbian and she stated the public education needs to be a site of socialize socialist organizing along with school libraries what what might that be at this conference they advocated abolishing the family replacing mom and dads with Collective parenting whatever that is and forming mass movements to protect children's right to engage in prostitution that's unadulterated evil the con the conference concluded with a radical drag show along with a screening of the pre-o terrorist movie how to blow up a pipeline how does this serve our kids we are trying to educate why am I telling you this it
026represents the kind of people that welds enormous influence over our Public Schools it reveals the agendas that are behind the perversion of our culture and our public education the radicals are quite open about this but by now we all know about the tangles and snares of your 606 policy it has a very chilling effect on our efforts to remove filthy books from libraries you all sit here in various positions for the purpose of educating our children well let's educate them I trust none of you faced complex issues like this while you were trying to navigate your educational years educating our kids mean that we give them the skills to read the skills to write and the skills to do math when we provide good books one can travel the world writing allows them to express
027themselves math allows them to learn to budget so they can live within their means imagine that I'm not stating anything new here we are aware well aware of our responsibility our kids our eyes have been open and we cannot unsee the obvious realities of the dangers facing us can we come together we the people for the sake of our future Generations thank you thank you daddy next is uh I might get the last name wrong but dorine dorine is it iseland she might be in the room takes a second for the stream to come through too I hope you paid less for those seats it's a good group back there bunch of educators first of all I'm going to say that um late great Ruth Ginsburg said sometimes you have to speak up even if
028your voice shakes and I am quite passionate about this I am going to quote sections of policy 606 just portions and it is about the objects of selection it is to reflect all racial ethnic cultural age gender inability diversity ities part 2C States a strong effort will be made to place principle above personal opinion and reason above Prejudice section D says with the selection The Works should be considered by the impact of each work as a whole not out of context the Supreme Court in 1982 wrote that the First Amendment which is our freedom of speech amendment if you're not aware does limit School of officials authority to remove books as it infringes on students rights to receive ideas and information they also stated School Personnel are limited in their power to restrict simply because
029they disagree with the content in the last several years efforts to ban books have increased in this year alone it is up 38% from last year this movement appears to be a coordinated campaign over the last three years the books primarily targeted are those that most often address race gender or both in a recent survey in October of this year the public religion Research Institute along with the BR Brookings Institute found that most Americans oppose Banning books in fact 88% nearly nine out of [Applause] 10 we are at a critical J right now in our in our country where our freedoms are under attack daily we as a people as a group as a community must engage in civil Discord at Schoolboard meetings we must also deal with our differences in respectful ways the basis
030for parents rights can also be allowed as well without limiting the options for other students we must meanwhile be vigilant we must speak up in support of the idea of freedom freedom of speech differ ideas and a commitment to civic's education and political participation lastly I would like to state that we need to leave selection to the delegated and very dedicated professional staff of our district thank you very much thank you Doran Bob gross so my name is Bob gross I live in I live in on G Lake uh my grandkids were attending here a while back they don't anymore but I'll go into that later but one thing I can all agree on here is none of us would would be here in this room if we didn't love our kids part of loving
031kids is feeding them a healthy diet let's say we are feeding kids app app apples are good even great yet how many people here would eat a rancid Apple do you have to eat the whole Apple first to know if it's rancid of course not how many people would feed that apple to kids most parents in croing County are conservatives they understand right and wrong at the Heart level they know when cutting open an apple if it's rancid or not they don't feed ra rancid apples to their kids you represent these parents these parents actually love their kids they serve their kids healthy apples and books what I'm asking here is for you to please love love our kids do the right and proper thing please don't serve rancid apples to our kids and my
032grandkids were part of the Brainard school district and some rancid apples were served and they're not there anymore they're homeschooled but I still love the Brainard School District I spent uh seventh eth and ninth grade in this building Bob gross was my principal my same name and so I'm here to fight for the kids love you guys thank you uh Terry Fric [Music] please good evening uh Terry Fric I'm a retired Lutheran clergy up in Lakes Shore n area um just want to share a personal experience that I had with my daughter many years ago the movie Foot Loose came out and when my daughter said Dad let's go to the movie I said hey yes let's go I had no idea where I what I was going to go see but um and I
033loved the music right away it was fun and uh but there was a scene in foot loose where Ariel who was the daughter of the Baptist clergy um was in a fight with her exboyfriend he was very jealous about a new kid coming into town and he was either stoned or drunk and he started pushing this girl around and almost hit her a couple he slapped her but he could have done worse and we both saw that scene and I you know wondered what my daughter thought about so at the end of the movie what do you think Sarah she looked at me and she said Dad I'm not going to use drugs this is a 13-year-old sharing that information to her dad I thought that was awesome what I'm trying to say is education
034is this amazing thing that happens to us information comes in all the time and we have been given the ability to filter out bad things and uh that movie helped my daughter do some filtering um and I think nurturing our kids in many ways will help them with those filters and uh so thank you to the school board and those who are working working on the filter system appreciate it thank you all right that concludes public comment moving on to the approval of uh the minutes from our last regular school board meeting on October 9th I'll make a motion to approve second I have a motion from director spear with a second from director dondelinger any discussion hearing none all those in favor I I oppose same sign MO carries right we'll move along then
035to the consent calendar I'll make a motion we approve the confront calendar I'll second we have a motion from director Breen with a second from director spear discussion director Hyman yeah I just have one question and I'm hoping that Marcy or maybe Dr H can answer it I noticed in the check register that we wrote a couple of what I considered to be fairly large checks to the beiji school district and I can't remember if it was Grand Rapids one of them I think one of them was for like 50,000 and one of them was 30,000 just it just caught my eye that's all why are we writing the check out another school district that's more than likely it's tuition billing and it's going to be students who are receiving care and treatment services okay
036so we own the the ucational service to that student gotcha as replaced so we're writing checks to beiji yeah so our kids are going to beiji they're placed in a care and treatment facility got which then the district still has responsibility for the educational component so it's done through state tuition billing so the state actually issues that tuition bill to us that's what's being paid it just it just seemed kind of wow uh so good okay care and treatment services are very expensive yeah I know and so that's our responsibility it's state law kind type of deal yes because they're a resident of the Brainard District is this I know we can't talk about individual people so let's pretend that someone's going to sou Falls for treatment so would that be for drugs alcohol um
037what what what constitutes that I mean what what what kind of treatment do you is there other treatments vience treatment or the majority of the treatments we're seeing right now are mental health based um or potentially behavioral based so that could be any of those things it could be a large variety of reasons yes I'm assuming we get an itemized an itemization actually the tuition is calculated by the state so it's going to be based upon the services are identifying to meet the students needs okay do we get um reimbursed for that by the state uh depends on the special education pieces of it there's special education attached to it there's reimbursement that comes with that and then students that are receiving we actually have care and treatment here in the brainer District as well
038um so there's a similar thing that happens to other districts as students come into our district so we're getting checks from other school districts for students that are placed okay okay because we have that level four facility does that include a lot of the students that come from outside the district to go there we have a level four facility that has students coming from out of the district we have a transition program that has students coming from out of the district um in addition uh our Lincoln education center houses a care and treatment program as well right so those are actual Revenue sources for the district potentially yes and does brainer provide um educational um experiences for kids in Port yes that's the care and treatment component okay we're at our level four that's correct
039question any further discussion Mr chair director Ward thank you um I always like to check the um grants and donations that we receive each month and this month uh some significant money donations have come from Dorcas excuse me Dorcas Community Center and from the brainer Lions but there's been a number of churches that have also and a number of people individuals that have also donated to both the high school and the forest forest M forth VI Middle School uh pantry and right now um the need is great and so I'd like to just you know point that out and salute those folks that are continuing in our community uh they're giving to others so I wanted to recognize that great thank you director Ward how how do you give to that deal I saw that
040my sister gave something like do you just go to the foundation you just go to the school do people know that they can do that are you asking specifically about the P okay let's just say you have a jacket like like a winter jacket could you just drop it off the school or do you call first or there's there's we have collabtive workers at our school for some of those um instances like that that are gathering hats coats mittens boots um and actually Crystal cleaners we do a lot of advertising Crystal cleaners actually does all the cleaning of the coats so they'll do a huge coat drive and then we do a coat distribution um that's typically uh ctoa the sunrise CA is do a lot with coat distribution um right now for our Warrior
041Warehouse or our pantries we do a lot of that on social media and then we have collection um dates actually there's a business in town that's hoping to do more of a stuff the bus um for the pantry so we did to stuff the bus for school supplies but I think as they step forward um and then there's a lot that happens through the donation Sarah spear I don't want to steal your thunder but I think she's going to make a pretty large L announcement about um a very generous donation to the foundation so multiple Avenues um but I agree actually John director Ward stole some of my thunder for the superintendent's report because we've had a lot about to get the nisis sock collectors to get on this well I would say I'm sure
042it's more than just one person Whoever has been involved in the social media promotion particularly of the warrior Pantry thing it was really really well done it was all over the place yep and thought that was especially over the weekend they cut a lot of that any other can always contact the district office and they'll get directed to the right spot director in the CIP goals goal number three is student attend student attendance positively insps student achievement so looking at attendance protocols for staff students Guardians to follow in regard to attendance for the school so it says a goal from attendance to go from 54 and a quarter to 70.5 five I thought last meeting we were at 67% so you're looking the one you're referencing is in your consent packet that's a specific CIP
043uh one cheater from Brainard High School yeah and what they're looking at is the high school data that that's reported is there's they're look our state goal is 90% of kids attend 90% of the time I saw that and that statistic that's there is I think it's 55.4 or 5454 and a quarter so you're looking at 54 and a quarter students the previous year so you're looking at 21 2021 data um only attended 90% or 55% of them attended 90% of the time so this isn't last year's data it's a year behind because our attendance data will like REM but it was so you're looking the year post Co so this is the year after Co but attendance is a significant concern which is why we spent so much time on the attendance policy you
044got to come to school yeah it's 54 and a half% so what happens do these kids get kicked out then or what do you do well we do the best we can to keep them in the building and educate them we're partnering with the county um but attendance is a huge deal wow that's and this is just that Briner high school though that's specific so the previous board meeting you attend you approved all the Sip uh goals for each site the BHS one page was not in that packet that's why it was in your consent so there so that was the middle the Theos of lower grades the attendance is better typically tends to be better in elementary and you start to see it diminish through Middle School in high school and again that's where
045some of the complaints you've been receiving about being more strict with attendance and excused and unexcused absences there's a we've always had that policy but now it's really looking at how do you enforce that if we want to improve achievement kids need to be in the building ATT 10 so the high school is making a very concerted effort I think it plays in Du DJ it plays into what I felt was a very well stated lqu that you did at the last meeting about that oh at the end yeah uh I think it's really really important I mean you can talk about all these other things uh as we try to tackle literacy uh test scores student Behavior it's really hard to improve any of that if they're not here and the only way we
046can effectively govern that as a board is through policy and already uh I show up tonight and I'm already getting push back from people that don't like the fact that we're trying to get the kids in the buildings um I'm sure everybody that's sitting out there is like well who would be against that you would be amazed um that people want the ultimate flexibility not realizing that we have to write a policy that covers 6,300 kids not Bob Johnson's kids or whatever right so it's uh it is it's definitely tricky for sure the disaster is what it is I mean you couldn't be on the hockey team you couldn't be on the soccer team you could I mean those girls that went to tennis I guarantee you that they didn't miss half the practices or
047they wouldn't have been there first of all they wouldn't have been good enough they would have been in good enough shape and on top of it the coach would never put up with it I don't think so I don't understand how we put up with that I guess I I don't know maybe your hands are tied but can you imagine if you went to the doctor that 54% of the time they didn't show up for work or the people that te clean your teeth or fix your car those they're going to show up I that much right I'll go over their house and pick them up but you know what I'm saying I mean it's like wow it's a bad precedent and it doesn't bode well for those people in the future if you can
048only make it half the time then what are you going to do when you're an adult it's not uh it's a recipe for a tough life is what it is that's too bad all right answer that any further discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion say hi please hi hi hi oppose same sign motion carries consent calendar is approved uh we now move on to presentations we will bring up Lori wig and Sheila desanta for the battle of the books presentation please you guys want this one thank you so much thank you for having us here tonight um I'm going to put our slide deck on I'm Lori wig um I'm a retired educator uh 36 years um I'm also the co-director of Battle of the books for um brainer Public Schools um
049most of the years of my education system were in brainer 31 years and I'm Sheila Dantel I'm president of the friends Mar public library and yeah we're here to talk about battle the books so this all started um fall of 2022 actually in the summer of 2022 and um Sheila is going to tell a little bit about where this idea came from so this started um after one of our events called wine and words Lori was part of that team and she came up afterward with her teacher education and she just felt strongly that we should be doing something for our students I told her it could not be called wine and words um but you know I kind of tossed around what she was saying that we really weren't we do a lot of
050programs through prenza Library we're doing different things for different ages um but we really weren't um really kind of getting involved in our kids I think there's obviously a lot of opportunity there for all age groups um but this particular event um just kind of told Lori well let's toss that around so we started meeting and talking a little bit about it and coming up with some crazy ideas and they were really big and crazy and then um it was fall of 22 when um myself and some of the other Li Library staff went to What's called the Minnesota Library Association last year it was in duth I went into a session called Battle of the books not knowing what I was going to do but the word battle I thought was really cool and
051didn't know what it was really going to be about and it was something the cities is doing and actually if you look it up it's kind of Nationwide yeah Nationwide um I love the idea it was basically kind of giving kids put putting books in kids hands they read them and then at the end of a certain amount of time they meet and they kind of battle in my head I envisioned kind of like Family Feud where you hit the buzzer and you have the answer and it was covering all the things we wanted to do it was putting books in kids hands it was having them read it was having them work together as a team it was just you know strengthening reading skills and just creating social just all the things you could
052just keep stacking on top of stacking um so I brought that idea back to Lori and said here's what I just sat through what do what can we do with this and so we slowly started to form what became Battle of the books so our original plan um when Sheila came back and talked to me about it my educator hat was on and um I my biggest concern was letting the kids just read and then come back and play a game about it um as a English language arts teacher I know what all of our English language arts teachers do they they teach the book they make sure that there are um opportunities to visit and discuss all the different themes and I was really concerned about just handing away books and saying okay we'll
053see you in a few months additionally part of my um education um my role in education in especially the last two years was to try and help close coid gaps so um we our battle plan was very different from the one that was at the national level so you'll see that we decided we'd have two sets of four books and it was going to be for summer reading um one of the sets of books was for grades 3 through 7 the other for five through seven with a few more mature themes our goal at that time was 40 readers per set a total of 80 kids we weren't really sure how we were going to get them but that's what the other group had done so that's what we thought I was hoping I'd get
054a few teachers to lead discussions and the biggest goal was to meet and tie this to the brainer Public Library this wasn't a district initiative to start with this was a brainer public library and the friends of the brainer Public Library also um one of the things that I believe is that it's important for kids to see authors as rock stars um when you're sitting in a classroom and you have books all around you those are thoughts of people and so if we could get our kids to meet authors and be inspired by their words um that are written and also the words that they could write themselves it would be great and then of course the game at the end so in the winter I sent the idea to the Briner Public Schools I
055sent it to brainer Public Schools Foundation just wondering maybe they'd want to be involved I also reached out to the Minnesota writers director directory we have an amazing um slew of incredible authors in this state and um before long uh the brainer Public Schools Foundation let me speak at the big event and in 3 minutes I spoke they said said I could have 3 minutes and I received $11,200 towards the initiative which was pretty exciting and at that event um Heidi said you know what Lori can we and Jessica HOA jokei can we open this wide and I said well what do you mean can we invite everybody and we had just had a big huge meeting um learning about equity and I started to think about that how could we pick 80 kids that's
056not really fair so I said really wide and they go invite everybody so um I did I went out to the schools um and with authors in tow on some of them Aaron Downing art Coulson and Bill Durban are three of the authors of our books we went to every school and I presented to the children and I let them choose I invited them to read with me with teachers all summer and meet the authors so the next few slides slides or we'll show you what the kids saw a little bit of it uh Battle of the books yes but brainards will be much more a summer reading Extravaganza we told them it would be fun laughter and thinking about books all summer long well that you know it's easy to say that and it's
057like how are we going to get them there so the method that we did was to read the books discuss the books and meet the authors the books that you see up there are for our grades 3 through 7 um I'm sure you're wondering how we chose these titles um these books represent a variety of themes um and genres uh and I'll talk about those in just a minute but um many of them are Minnesota authors that's where we started additionally we started with Minnesota State Standards which say that our books that we choose in education need to be mirrors and windows of the people that are in our schools so so we wanted to make sure that the children were exposed to people just like them and they also learn about the lives of
058other folks too the second set of books for our upper kids was this set although the third one over got changed because we couldn't get it but Margie Pro still came and you'll see across there you'll see um Holocaust and um well we'll talk about those themes but Sheila said Lori how are we going to get them to come in the summer and I said well I'm a teacher what do you think and she said so I was just thinking it's hard enough to get kids you know it's summer it's you know awesome in Minnesota um so I I thought what are we going to do to help actually want kids to come to these sessions during summer and read a book so I said I I think they need food they definitely need to
059have food and Gloria was like that's not my wheelhouse like well I think it might be mine so so I went out to our local restaurants and kind of shared with them the vision and it was just amazing um just like what happened with the schools it was just amazing how many restaurants just loved that this was something for the kids in our community and they they donated so um obviously you're probably going to be talking about that about how much bigger it got than what we thought this is also in our slide deck that we gave to the children what does a reader need to do pick up the books in G June read the books with their eyes or ears um one of the pieces of equity we did not want this to
060be about the ability to read there are a lot of children out there who can't struggle to read a page but they can comprehend 2 years above with they're just listening so we took out that piece of struggle we wanted to make sure that they weren't just re they were thinking about the book it wasn't about the ability to read um many of the children actually were able to listen to the books through audio and many many many parents read them out loud to their children we asked them to attend as many events as possible but it was summer so it wasn't a requirement and to prepare to battle um Mid August and then to battle and we always told them it was 100% free so over 2,000 children students were introduced to it and
061when we started out this summer 400 sets of books went out to teacher leaders and the families at the beginning of the summer we gave them at the library and we gave them at um the friends of the Brer Public Library uh bookstore in the mall and readers most of them signed up for the library summer reading program and anything that they did for our program counted for their program so they were double dipping in prizes and activity um all the discussions they met every single author all eight authors joined us most of them in person snacks and meals were provided um at all 14 events and we emailed them text reminders and RSVPs continually all summer and I swear that was the key the constant communication of letting parents know hey today we're meeting
062at 3:00 at the high school don't forget additionally for our summary as you can see 159 actively participated in set one 62 boys and 97 girls you can see um the um number of students from each uh school and then Battle Set 2 was only open to Middle School level kids so that's why it only says Forest View and then a few others that came from um actually I couldn't remember if they were homeschooled but it was 86 actively participated all summer 29 boys and 57 girls so these kids were fed every single time they came and um it didn't just happen to be U that I had a few um members of istd 181 staff I had 18 members for set one and 13 for set two Highly Educated people who led the discussions
063they work with kids constantly they showed up all the time and the reader to Le leader ratio was about 10 to1 the themes you can see Mars exploration family love and loss friendships Chinese immigration racism Rising above adversity personal talents Cherokee culture and beliefs and protection of animals that was for grades 3 through 7 and on the right hand side grades 5 through seven family love and loss mistakes forgiveness Irish immigration protection of animals natural re and natural resources perseverance confidence bravery World War II and the Holocaust so let's get to the good stuff the kids it's the food Mickey's donating sandwiches Nick Miller's little guy getting his pasta our beautiful volunteers and and also some of our teachers there was always a teaching moment this was um in June um for one of our
064stories it was a fictional story about a robot so we do we dive we dove into NASA small group discussion with Wendy Becker and one of our authors another small group discussion we use the high school and of course game playing you have to have some games revolving around their book knowledge all the the games that we played then led into the battle in September this is one of our last events this was August 30th this was held at Harrison and you can see art Coulson our Cherokee author he came and thanks to Harrison um they allowed us to use their gym you can see we're packed at the end of August and Walmart provided the entire meal that day and they also brought hundreds of classic books and the kids could have as many
065as they wanted over 200 actively participated all throughout the summer and the public library summer reading program flourished the grand battle was held on Tuesday September 12th th this one was at Forest View and you can see the game cahoot there unfortunately our numbers dropped off a little bit because we it was during the school week um we really didn't know when we should do the grand battle we thought that summer would be too hard so we shot for a Tuesday because then we didn't have to worry about Transportation worried about equity for transportation and we did have a large number of kids you can see how excited they were and they had their team names and their team groups they had formed those in August the social aspect became very large I love to
066see the boys and the girls working together on their knowledge we had games that were for groups and we also had individual games and you can see Henry winning his $100 bill um he had his dad told one of the other teachers that he had reread two books the night before and of course there's Brody Brody was pretty excited and they all got their certificates and he was second Place winning $80 just under 200 kids participated in the individual and group Grand battles prizes included $20 Visa gift cards from dearwood bank and cash prizes donated by GLS promotions who had printed our t-shirts additionally every single kiddo received two more books one of them the top choice of graphic novel and they had $10 of their choice at their local school Book Fairs which I'm
067not done with nisah hasn't done theirs yet and Garfield hasn't gotten theirs yet but um the friends of the brainer Public Library um 187 time 10 um you should see those kids picking out their choices um we made them read and stretch their brains and now they got to choose and it had to be a book couldn't be any toy this speaks volumes these are our um people who donated one um slide and here's our second every single kid got meals every single time they came um the community was just unbelievable to us these were our goals and we accomplished all of them a unified CommunityWide effort to promote summer reading free and inexpensive books into the hands of our readers develop community and friendships through Reading common books help readers learn more about themselves
068and others through diverse books share and grow the use of all of our brainer Public Library offerings and promote the use of on free online free reading um our schools have Sora and the library has hoopla and so we wanted them to know that you can always read no matter where you are and almost every parent has a device in readers by introducing them to authors they met all eight and a big thing we wanted to build reading momentum for the school year um we gave those books out the night of the uh battle and I had a mom email me and say uh she already read the graphic novel I'm like okay awesome so and then to build awareness and membership of the friends of the Bruno public library and all they do for
069our community so we are excited um through the halfway point of the summer we asked parents for feedback um got great feedback did some um modifications and changing to reflect what they asked um have done the same in the end and um out of the 187 kids who battled that day uh 95% of them said they'll be back this year so thank you thank you you thank you Mr chor Ward Lori oh would you please um give your and Sheila give yourselves a um plug of how people in this community can help um or donate and okay um I had one of my parents about a month ago she asked um will you take donations and I said absolutely and uh she asked where they should go and I said the friends of the brainer
070public library and uh last Friday we received a check for $5,000 wow wow um our parents have really been supportive the emails that I get the happy things so this is a program that we offered to every single child and it definitely fits a niche for kids for some of our kids um it it should be for all of our kids but there are some kids who just want to read and discuss and talk um about big and beautiful topics um I've never been so proud of a group of kids when they discuss the missing piece of Charlie O'Reilly and talked about forgiveness and love and and Rising above mistakes um it's been wonderful I hope that we get the same number of Educators we are looking at this next year and talking about how
071we can move forward we're talking about streamlining things we had 14 different events um we need to maybe cut that down a little bit so parents can make sure that they they come um but everybody that really participated the 250 kids who were there want to be back we really want to open this up too and grow it um one of the saddest things was when my seventh graders looked at me and said it was really fun Mrs wig I'm sorry but you know now we can't be in it anymore and I said no no no we're going to open that I would really like to see this that's where this should go that the kids start picking the books the topics and then I facilitate what authors do you want to see what do
072you want to talk about what is important in this world to have good discourse around that's what our teachers do all the time so I'm able to take this in the summer and I'm able to what was really good about being an educator and a retired educator was that I could do the same types of things that our teachers do from September to May and I could get it ready for summer and then what those Educators when they came in they had to read books and meet with kids and the smiles on their faces they love it I didn't have to fight to get people to come so to do that background and to do that leg workor and get it ready was just a a blessing to me and a great thing to do
073with my retirement Mr cheer director thank you so um Lori and Sheila so people we're not going to pass the hat tonight we send but so people can go to the library write a check and in the memo write battle for books isn't that the correct process uh that would be one way Friends of the brainer Public Library it would have to be written to the Friends of the brainer public library right they are the entity that we um work through easy to do go to the library right friend is a brainer Library memo battle for the books and people can donate that way yes and thank you too director Ward for that anything else Mr chair can I ask a question yeah good so to me the most fascinating thing was watching the kids
074with the authors yeah loved every second of it and I think you gave us a statistic of once area authors or authors around the state or region started to hear what was happening you've had authors approach you you kind of were looking at an RFP process I know initially when I talked about it maybe had it out there a week or two and you had 19 different authors approach you I don't know where that's numbers at now so in looking for authors for this year last year was a lot of work because I had to do a lot of the research myself and um so I am connected to a Facebook group that is middle level teachers and middle level authors throughout Minnesota and Nationwide Aon Downing um connected me to them so I gave
075them a little blurb and some information from the brainer um public or from the dispatch and I said this is what we did would you be interested um we have 35 authors who have sent us their information and it helped me out because I sent out a Google form and they filled in all the information their name their email their website their cost their genre everything that I needed and so I brought those titles the ones that I felt were worthy to the children and so the students went through um many of the titles and now I'm I'm reading all the books and I I I'm finishing one today that I know they are going to love um but they want to be a part of it they want choice and when you look at
076our Minnesota state standards that too is a huge part of what we do when children own what they read when they are when they can choose that is the most powerful ful also these books were Theirs to keep their's power in owning books and so these children got to keep their four sets or set of four many of them were signed by the authors um and then for them their big eyes at those Book Fairs you know and checking out or picking out their own book was powerful extremely powerful any other questions director heightman yeah just a comment um Money Follows good ideas and this is a damn good idea so you know continued success uh because everyone says Ah there's not enough money to do this do that but money always finds a way
077when there's good ideas and uh this sounds like it was something very important for 250 plus children this summer uh and I'm sure you'd like to obviously expand that we would love to grow it literacy is so important but then at the same same time to ask our communities like we fed every time Sheila would say what's our count today and I'd say 150 and so she would turn to our community and you know M um chef Mike 150 walking tacos you know for the kids um every time she'd say what's our count by Adella came through two different pastas and and Caesar salad and bread sticks for the kids I mean it just kept coming and coming and coming but yes let's grow it and let's make sure that these kids can read and
078throughout the summer there are some of our children who have nothing nothing they sit at home that's why the high school was so Central and it was so important because they could bike there they could walk there and so this was something that everybody could do and almost every everybody could get there additionally we offered in in terms of equity we had a 3 to 430 slot then we had a break and we had a 6 to 7:30 slot for our working parents and our non-working parents or parents who worked the day or our parents who work at night we really tried to make sure that this was good for all kids and that it was available for them so and if you have any ideas or suggestions send them my way I still do
079have a school email address they let me have it they cut it off for a little bit but they gave it back you turned it back on so Lor that for some other people lori. wig isd181.org thankk you so much for our your time I know over did you have something I did I just want to say I think we'd be remiss if we didn't recognize that the passion and the vision behind this came from the two of you so thank you uh next up we have the uh presentation from sourcewell great [Applause] thanks thank you thank thank [Applause] you good evening board and thank you for having us tonight um my name is Paul drange I'm the chief Regional Solutions officer at sourcewell and to my right is Cindy Swanson I'll let her introduce
080herself in just a few minutes here um but I just wanted to give a little bit of a context to our visit this evening um we don't have any slides uh but we do have handouts I I gave to all the uh board members and uh superintendent Han and I had extra so if anyone's interested in grabbing one they're on the chair right behind me and if anyone here wants to grab one they certainly can um so I mentioned we're from sourcewell and we are your regional service cooperative and a lot of our work we do revolves around serving school districts in our region and uh last spring we offered up to every superintendent in our region uh that we would be open to coming to visit at a Schoolboard meeting and just giving some
081information to school boards about our partnership with your school and to cover some of the services and partnership opportunities we've done with with uh School boards uh if they'd like us to come so uh Cindy and I were in Pillager over the summer visiting with superintendent malberg and his board and we've also been uh to three or four other school districts and in the last couple months uh superintendent H said hey Paul I'd like you to come and visit with our school board and just give a general overview of sourcewell and cover some of the services and like I said Partnerships that we cover um in working with brander Public Schools so tonight worked out it's great to see a nice uh audience here and we're excited to share so I know you've got a
082lot left to cover we'll try to be brief um but we will answer questions if you have them and what we'll do is I'll cover an overview of source wall in general and then I'll turn it over to Cindy to speak more specifically about uh some of the things we're doing directly with Brainard Cassy rice who's a resident of your district and has two sons in the school is our director of our education Solutions team she wasn't able to be with us tonight um but she's very involved in the district and and frankly you're lucky to have her living here too so um so briefly what you can see um on the who is sourcewell side is what I'm referring to right now of what you've got um we were created by State Statute in
083the 1970s we've talked a lot about reading tonight and if you're having trouble sleeping I'd suggest statute 123 a.21 for nighttime reading might help you with your sleeping but in all seriousness that is where the language that created service cooperatives lives within State Statute um we were originally called educational Cooperative service units created in the interest of of helping school districts do things in Partnership or in combination that are difficult for them to do on their own that is the spirit of why we exist um later in 80s our names were changed from exus to service cooperatives and the legislation was changed to include cities counties and other units of government so we currently work with counties we work with cities we can work with nonprofits and of course our core work is with school
084districts in our region so as you can see by the map sourcewell serves a five count area that includes that includes crowing where we're at tonight of course Cass Morrison Todd and wadina counties and every city that's within those five County boundaries and all 23 school districts and special ed cooperatives um as well as of course those five counties um we are governed we are a unit of government um and we are governed by elected officials in the same way that the Brer Public Schools is um we have an eight member board six members of that board are School District members and two are from other public agencies or other entities that I just described that we serve and I just thought i' list those out real quick so you knew where they were from
085Julia kicker is on our board she's a school board member at managa Sharon teal is on our board she's a school board member from berth the huitt schools and then the next two I'm going to mention are represent the subdistrict that Brainard is a part of so Sarah Nagel who's the board chair at Pillager is on the sourcewell board and Linda Arts is on our board and she is a board member at the Walker hackin ay public school and then we have Douglas dolberg from Little Falls Public Schools Chris ker from swanville public schools and then the last two seats are those other elected officials so Greg zilka who's happens to be our board chair is the mayor of Little Falls he's on our board and then many of you probably know Steve baros he
086is a Crowing County Commissioner and he also serves on our board as well so those eight board members like I said uh govern us and we have monthly board meetings much in the same way as Schoolboard would um another important point to point another important point to make is we don't have any taxing or leving authority we we have to create our um our funding through uh program service fees um so we have to create Buy in and create value for our members based on their needs so we we have advisory committees we listen to the needs that they' they have uh the services they'd like us to create and then we work with our staff and our teams to create those services and then their access you know through members so today um as
087it mentions we serve education government nonprofit agencies and our our real goal is to boost community and Student Success and then provide those services that are needed based on what the members tell us they need that is our goal so there's really a three-pronged approach to that locally we do a lot of work with and and Cindy will dive deep into this for you in just a moment we deliver training professional development uh services for school districts we do a lot of contracted services with our counties we license all the private inhome daycare uh providers within our five count area uh in partnership with those five counties it's a great partnership we have with them we also do a lot of zoning Administration work for a lot of uh Lake communities here in this community
088um croing Township uh some of the smaller cities city of Emily um and some others that um we're able to share that service with them so they don't have to have their own full-time staff they don't need a full-time staff we have that staff they can tap into that resource Statewide we have a self-funded group health insurance uh option for public agencies so we have members in our Health Insurance Pool and the other service cooperatives you see on the map also have health insurance pools that help public agencies Access Health Care Resources for their employees and then Nationwide this is our primary revenue driver where we can recruit dollars from across the country and reinvest them into this five count region we have a robust Cooperative purchasing program that public agencies in all 50 states
089and in Canada utilize um and and we're able to realize administrative fees from the from the awarded suppliers of those contracts that pay us for the ease of them selling their products to public agencies through our Cooperative purchasing so that works out really well for us and for our region because like I said we can recruit those dollars to reinvest here in this community so what's in it for you um as a as a school district um we're a service agency that service Cooperative word means something in what we're named we're here to serve we're here to listen we're here to create opportunities for us to work together to create efficiencies in how we do things and how we um help you bolster what you're bringing to who you serve and that's the families and
090students of your District um we've invested uh as it mentions at the bottom um more than $10 million back into the region through Staffing and programming last fiscal year and in the fiscal year that we're in now we're on the same fiscal year at district is on July 1 to June 30 um we are planning to invest almost $16 million and we're very proud of the partnership it's been brought up a few times we were able to create a partnership with the Brainard public schools during your referendum work where we made an an extra investment into your Lincoln education center to help enhance the services provided through that building just across the street and uh we're just really happy to be able to partner with you on that and excited to see what it's turned
091into in the services it brings every day uh just awesome so um that is an overview on sour I'm happy to answer any questions you have as a board we could do that at the end I could turn it over to Cindy right now um I'm open to either so uh maybe hold your questions I'll turn it over to Cindy and I'll let her dive deeper into specifics with Brainard so thank you for your time I'll turn it over to Cindy Swanson thanks Paul my name is Cindy Swenson and I um have a longtime connection to the brainer Community lifelong resident um class of 87 brainer high school graduate and now I have the um privilege to serve in the role of being your District strategy partner at sourcewell and so um I just wanted
092to share a few things that are education department provides um we provide uh many programs to help you meet your goals um we provide training and consulting services for your administrators teachers and staff um for students we offer programs and resources that focus on helping them succeed both in school and in life we've been really fortunate to partner with rer public schools on several programs and training including the career consultant program Tech Mobile meteor education networks principal nourishment Catalyst and more trust Edge training offers the Brainard schools district leadership team a model to assess and intentionally build a culture of trust and sourcea partners with Brainard schools to address the teacher shortage through offerings like the inro education course the central Minnesota student teacher Residency program and a recent collaborative effort to apply for a
093special education teacher pipeline Grant we're working to find the best people for your students so with that um I'll turn it back to Paul in case you have any questions director what's what is a culture of trust what's a culture of trust what is that what does that mean we um all these you know this is what everything is these days we had all these words what is a culture of trust um we so in that work we um have partnered with an individual his name is David hor Sager he's actually from Verndale originally and um he through his research has has developed a company a private company that trains organizations on building trust in within their organizations it's called trust Edge and so we've had some of our staff trained through um David to
094to get certified in his system of evaluating your internal system on trust there's eight pillars to that and uh Cindy and other people on our staff have some expertise they're bringing at the request of districts when they want to look at that as a something they like to bring in so that's something we picked so director Bo's gonna answer yes ma okay so yes I asked our partner to a source well we actually went through a Leadership Retreat two years ago and some of the the administrative staff came back after learning more about David horse hoger research and said hey I think as a team we really need to look at this and so collectively as our administrative team right now we've partnered Cindy our educational leader where we've taken some individual assessments and group
095assessments and we're really diving into each of those eight pillars uh we found that our weakest pillar is uh Clarity uh which is common research so just you know our administrative team is really looking at how do we focus on Clarity how do we bring Clarity to processes how do we bring clity to communication um again trying to enhance that and build their capacity so we're in a year one of a two-year process of really diving into that research and making Collective plans around that research to bring it into action so is the trust between the administration is the trust between the teachers in the administration is the trust between the parents and the school district is the trust between the kids and their teachers who's the trust so again I think it's all of
096it so we know that uh trust is built over every every single interaction we have every single interaction is an opportunity to either build or or destroy trust and so we're really looking at that and we reflect As Leaders how's that happening with our staff how is that happening with our families how is that happening with students so it hits all those facets uh but what it's allowing us to do as an administrative team when you look at 12 different buildings um with lots of communication we're talking tens of thousands of parents when you look at 6,300 students as well as our community what can we do um to continue to Foster to build that trust so we're working to make a collective effort of learning together um and really relying on Research not just
097feeling or sentiment or one email or whatever it is to really have that Collective response um it's one of our top priorities as an administrative team cool figured it out work in progress Dr Hyman um with teacher recruitment how's that been going because man there's a shortage of teachers all over the place Nationwide I think what is it 40,000 400 400,000 so how do we how do we get to kids that are still in high school to talk to them about hey what do you think about teaching I mean how I mean it just seems like a it's almost a task that's uh it's got to drive you crazy sometimes so that um yeah that's a really good question that's what the Android education cour is designed to do and it is a course that
098is offered in Regional high schools that offers some college credit some articulated credit that gets them that introduction um teaches them about what what it's like to be an educator they pair up with teacher mentors um and get a get a really robust experience to find out what it would be like to be a teacher um and we've had quite a quite a high level of participation in the region and particularly at Brainard high school with kids taking that course um another question Maybe you know I'm older than dirt so just keep that in mind uh you're not as old as John are you we're close we're close uh oh now I know it you got me off base there for a second when I was going to college talking to kids I mean I
099was not going to be an educator I was not that was not my field and I I was always told one of the the last things a kid does before they graduate from college with a degree in education is they student taught and I always thought just my own personal opinion now I always thought that that was kind of backwards why would you find out at the very end of your college career that you didn't want to teach or that you wanted to continue teaching so is there any any thought process about opening up kids to maybe student teach or become involved with education in a school like in their sophomore year or is that something that the politicians deal with that's from a state law standpoint I think it's a common I think it's
100Common Sense myself I know uh the chair and I once in a while in private conversations will you know he'll always what's what do you mean Common Sense well I don't know I just think this is a common sense why wait till the end why not do it sooner is it going to chase people away is it going to is it going to cause them to not be a teacher I mean I that was it was always something that I always was kind of interested in in an I never had an answer yeah and I don't know that we do either but I do know that um the teacher prep programs in the state are needing to look at different ways of training and Delivery for Teacher candidates and I think that would be a
101great way to do that I'm not sure if our core universities St Claude State Minnesota University of Morehead Minnesota University of manal a lot of the state universities they still have their teacher prep programs and um you know I think part of it is is lifting up the the uh the the career of teaching as and to try to shine that in more of a positive light and I think you're right to expose them to what the realities are of what a day in a teacher looks like what a year in a teacher looks like and in this intro to education course like Cindy said there are some connections that early with Mentor teachers to say I know you're 18 or 17 right now but here's what you can expect when you're 22 23 coming
102out uh your first year teaching might look like and the experiences with kids and working with discipline and curriculum and educa you know uh teaching as an art um is all part of things you're trying to expose them to in that class so there are some we need to take I think your point is well taken we need to take some different roads to try to promote and lift up the profession of Education um and that's part of what's woven into this in our partnership with schools too okay cool Dr one last shout out about just recruiting teachers so that's one of the efforts that soura has made is uh teacher recruitment retention um one of the things we just received I'm looking at Angie who stepping back our HR Director soura has made a
103point to reach out to universities that have teacher prep programs and try to lure them into the area W to student teach right so there's some paid mentorships there's some additional stiens for teaching staff it's a huge responsibility for educators to then take on and Mentor a teacher as well and share that craft with them um but they just gave us a list of upcoming graduates in December um that were interested in schools in our region so we know with positions that are coming up or that we haven't filled um we're on the phone saying hey we heard you want to come to Central Minnesota we have an opening in this so that was a a gift to get ahead of the grou graduates um and get them to come in uh potentially to look
104at our school district as well so we're very grateful to get that list to add on to that superintendent Han we have a we have one full-time FTE staff on Cassidy's team that's purely dedicated to teacher Recruitment and Retention in our region we also have um and Cindy this could be part of what we talk about too with retention is we have a first year teacher Network part of the um part of the services we provide or opportunities for schools to engage that we provide our Networks it's not as applicable for brainer because of your size but for smaller schools where there might only be one chemistry teacher or even one or two fied teachers or one English teacher in the high school we have networks where those teachers can get together and compare best
105practice compare notes and one of the networks that's formed up through that work is a firste uh teacher Network where first year teachers have an opportunity to connect virtually we try not to disrupt the school day sometimes we get them together face to face but where they can talk about boy this has been tough for me how are you dealing with this this has been tough in my first four months or I've had success with this can I share this with you and those networks have been successful too because once we get them here as superintendent Hans said we want to keep them here keep them teaching and keep them in our area so promoting our area promoting the amenities that they have and living in our in our region um and also supporting them
106as they get started with their career are important parts of it too thank you um there's lots of factors that need to be involved in the retention and recruitment of Educators period um and I just want to address uh representative heyman's representative there I'm going to another body again director director Hyman's um question um um when I went to my teacher training at University of Minnesota D with UMD um we had what was called pre-student teaching pre-student teaching was you took it usually in your sophomore year and it wasn't student teaching but it was mentoring internship whatever you wanted volunteering or whatever you want to call it observation with a um veteran teach educator um and the the problem becomes not every all all of our higher ad facilities have different styles of programs have
107different requirements of programs and have different um time time frames of programs um and it's not any different than you know even our literacy that we always talk about is you know we need to look at what our our future educators are are learning in the highered facilities as well with literacy and all all aspects of teaching but that's just one one aspect is you know pre pre- student teaching versus student teaching um you know that needs to happen and and I would encourage all of us to get hold of the highed folks down at both the Senate and House to make to to to try to be more uniform within the system itself um so that our Educators um you know and they are prepared and many of them and they but they come
108in also overwhelmed uh many times as a new educator and so you know the other point is retention retainment recruitment um you know is is so critical today as as it was a few years ago as well as it has been in the past decades as well but even in the future it's more important I also want to just say about sourcewell this one thing about sourcewell um you know and I I think um Paul you brought it up I I remember correctly is you not only deal with uh School District you deal with cities you deal with counties and and you deal um with government agencies that aren't able to do on their own if they were had to do if especially with buying services or products or whatever um you sourcewell uh that's
109how the state legislature came up with the idea of uh you know as a group if you can provide services products materials or whatever um you're going to be more compet competitive pricing and service for that as well um and sourcewell has done a nice nice very nice job of that and so thank you for all that you've done for not only Brer but the whole region in providing to all of those governmental agencies especially schools but all of them um an opportunity to uh move forward so and I know also that you're not only involved in those uh agencies governmental agencies Paul you and I have worked on another project that there's a whole separate deal and you guys you guys get your fingers involved in a lot of things that are very important
110to local areas and local communities that maybe aren't so much under your perview or whatever so we we appreciate that as well thank you y so when I arrived in this room about three years ago I didn't know very much about sorc well in fact I didn't know it used to be the exu and my interaction with ex exu was when I was a high school student and Pillager um three and almost four decades ago and uh I remember them introducing knowledgeable to us we still do that today yeah and I thought in fact a good family friend of ours was I I would imagine was uh Cindy's equivalent back in those days a thousand years ago um and so I got to know a little but when I got elected and showed up here
111I really didn't really know the distinction of what sourcewell does um the other thing I didn't really understand when I got elected was how um how high some of the highs that you experience as a school board member can be and how low some of the lows can be what I would say is one of the biggest high Events maybe the biggest that with with with the possible exception of our high school graduation which is an amazing ceremony as well but I want to tell you that the ribbon cutting at the LEC um was maybe the most fulfilling and emotional experience that I've had as a school board member and it absolutely would not have been possible without the correct me if I'm wrong $4 million that sourcewell threw into the bucket for us for
112that five five five see look at that know I did the same thing thank you thank you yeah no we uh that that should not go unnoted and and it was just for those that didn't have a chance to attend it um we had parents that spoke um we had a couple of our Educators that serve in that building one in particular that was it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen a human being say in person and you were on hand and I I think you can attest to what a wonderful wonderful uh and now we're looking at you know the the fruits of that tree starting to you know be picked and and harvest Ed for um all these high need uh kids and young adults and it would not
113have been possible without you all so thank you very much thank you director heid one other question uh in the in the area of teacher uh Recruitment and something that uh John had brought up is keeping teachers what kind of uh programs what kind of things are you guys involved in as as far as student Behavior I mean let's face it I mean there's a lot of teachers that Boogie and uh you know they're tired of getting sworn at they're tired of getting you know hit chairs thrown at him now is it does it happen a lot I don't I hope not but I mean how how do you how do we deal with that I think a lot of the programs that we offer really are are around the training piece and um you
114know our our things things have changed in our context in the last few years obviously that's not a surprise to anyone and so we have to keep learning about what do we need to do to to address those needs and you know a lot of that is around um there are a lot of things out of our control but a lot of things in our control and so really it is about the training and we are always um looking to see what the best training is that is out there and how we can bring that to the region and so sometimes we provide that training through um some of our in-house um staff um and other times we partner with outside agencies um that have Specialties even beyond our beyond our training to train us
115and to help provide Regional training for teachers so um training and support that's really our that's really our our best chance to address it do you have a Lobby in arm that I mean obviously some of the rules you know again uh the chair told me after I got elected he said now there's be some things you're going to want to change you can't because of the state laws um do you guys have a Lobby an arm that you deal with with you know the legislature about you know giving teacher some some tools we we do have um as part of our staff I mentioned the the regional the Statewide and the national piece and there's legislation that allows us to exist I mentioned the statute and and then within that statute there's there's specific
116activities or Services we can provide based on how the statute's written so that's of course State Law related so we have a government relations team that does look at those things we also do a lot of partnering with your Statewide agencies when you talk about msba or the superintendent Association or Minnesota rural Educators Association which is very active for our rural area and advocating at the state legislature level for the best outcomes in how the law or policies are written based on what students need and what's best for teachers and families so um we do have staff that keep an eye on those things we try to partner with others as a government agency we don't have lobbyists that we hire per se we're not allow to do that like you're not but we do
117have staff that are dedicated to watching those things testifying if needed but a lot of that happens in Partnership and coordinated efforts around platform development with those state agencies to help advocate for what's best for schools and what they need so we are definitely involved in that I mean students there's you know that's mental health is a a big issue for for students but I think mental health of teachers is pretty important as well absolutely you know uh so thank you thank you are you basically funded by the state no we're where does the $16 million come from that you're going to give away how many people work at sourcewell I get so many questions about sourcewell I Used to Know Cheryl Hills with the old region five I was really involved with skull and
118we were trying to work with you folks to that's what sourcewell is now basically was the old region five right no no still exists it does yep that's an economic development that was also developed on State Statute but that's for regional Economic Development activity and and those are separate regions separate organization separate board so that Cheryl same area same in our case it's the same exact geographic area that's correct so how do you get funded because I find it surprising that you sell enough stuff to give away 16 million bucks this year we actually well we don't sell anything but our suppliers because of our awarded contracts through our Cooperative purchasing program do sell a lot of things so um it's hard to give context to the numbers but in the last couple years in
119in the area of8 billion dollar of sales have gone through our contracts across the country and into Canada that's just Source well for the Five County area well that's that's our got all nine of them in the state no that's across the entire country right in in all 50 states and in providences in Canada as well so because of joint Powers agreements between governments uh for example the city of Los Angeles can sign a joint Powers agreement with sourcewell because we're both government agencies and are awarded contracts through say I'll just use an example but say caterpillar they need a caterpillar piece of equipment they the city of Los Angeles can buy that directly off of an awarded contract through sourcewell because we're both government agencies so they don't have to do an RFP process
120on their own they don't have to evaluate all the responses because we've already done all that on their behalf so they can partner with us use the contract to make a direct purchase to Caterpillar that makes it super easy for Caterpillar so because they made that sale they say thanks sourcewell you've created an easy way for us to create a sale here's an administrative fee that averages about 1% of the sale and they pay that to us for doing that work UPF front for them and the city of Los Angeles doesn't pay anything to us they're strictly paying the bill for that piece of equipment they got from Caterpillar so those transactions happen every day over hundreds of contracts like I said in every state in the Union and in Canada so that's that's over
12190 between 90 and 95% of our funding comes from that we have some uh uh contracted services with with low incident special ed that comes through Federal and State dollars that come in and then we do charge a small fee to our districts for some of the services that Cindy talked about but that's generally less than five cents on the dollar of what it actually costs so we primarily fund it through that National Cooperative purchasing work so it's a model that's worked great for us and it's and we I don't want to emphasize it too much but it is a great way for us to recruit dollars from across the country to reinvest in these five counties and the districts within them is there competition between you and the other ones I who has the
122best has the most do where how's it work yeah the the other eight service cooperatives have their own Cooperative purchasing program it's quite a bit smaller in scale it's more Regional based in Minnesota North South Dakota a little bit into Nebraska and Iowa and there's a few other service cooperatives exist in most of the other states probably over 30 and some of them have Cooperative purchasing programs as well um and we're not exactly sure how big of them how big all of them are but Source walls is likely the the biggest one in the nation well congratulations yeah thanks it's great team and to answer your other question we have about 300 and I think it's about 320 employees now most of them work and live in our region in our area um but we
123have employees across Minnesota and now into other states with remote work being more possible we can find uh the expertise we need with a bit of a wider net cool that's great thank you Paul thank you Cindy appreciate it all right we will shuttle on to new business first up is the approval of the resolution establishing combined polling places for multiple precincts and designating hours during which the polling places will remain open for voting for school district elections not held on the day of a Statewide election as presented this is largely proforma we do it every year it's just in the in the a weird circumstance where we may have an election that occurs off the normal schedule for some reason you want to add any further color Dr Han no typically in the past
124has been on the agenda in December we moved it to this agenda in November but it's standard regular business even though it's under new business for you the board I'll make a motion to approve second right we have a motion from director Spear and a second from director Ward to approve the resolution as presented any further discussion hearing none calls for a roll call vote Michelle Breen yes DJ Doner yes Randy Hyman yes Sarah spear yes John Ward yes Kevin Bo yes all in favor thank you Janet motion carries and unanimously uh next item up for new business is the approval of the first reading of msba policy 631 Library materials as presented so I'm really going to let uh director Hyman and director Bo speak a lot to what is in this policy uh
125we did have a policy committee meeting where the majority of this was discussed um at that policy committee lots of input was taken so there was uh director Hyman moved forward a piece that was written I think by a group of um constituents um post policy committee meeting we also had director Hyman and director donlinger give us some input but what happened at that policy committee meeting was starting with um um what has been requested across the state uh is to pull policy 606 which was really written uh 20 plus years ago specific to curriculum to really then create a separate Library materials policy based on uh kind of the current state of questioning material so msba released its model policy and what our uh policy committee did is we laid that template down and
126the thing about an msba policy is they make sure the template aligns with all state and federal statutes and so we really went section by section then um to really look at uh the nature and purpose of the policy so what you see before you is the first draft um and I'm sure as we go through there'll be more uh more changes or more edits as we go as this is our first attempt to um put this policy in motion so with that I'll turn it to for to director Hyman and director boil and to the board for questions thank you director Hyman would you like to kick us off yeah this is uh the first reading uh obviously and uh as Dr Han mentioned uh we had uh I always get a kick out
127of uh the policy committee uh the length of time the meeting is going to last uh posting three or four hours something we have to post but uh I think we went until 45 430 we had we had a lot of good discussion a lot of different uh points were made uh when I was looking over this uh I've got some questions that have that have come up uh myself uh since that meeting uh I don't know do we want to handle it where you and I are going to sit and talk about this or I mean what about the other board members that may not have well it's going to be all all six right will handle it as the other discussion what I would say is I what I wanted to do was
128exactly what you just did was to put a little bit of color around how we got to where we are today yeah I mean there was a lot of discussion a lot of give and take and I would I would actually ask director Ward to chime in a little bit too because some of this is derivative from a session that we went to down at the uh the the msba conference where some insight was given by the msba particularly legal council as it related to their mission when they were getting ready to draft the the boilerplate policy that we're working from so um one other piece of color no pun intended that I will add to this for the community folks if you're pulling this down off the website and reading it and looking at
129it and I know some of you have because you've sent some comments over um generally speaking the items that are in red when you go through this draft policy are items that we added at the policy committee level they were not part of the msba template that we got and I'm not sure that was ever emphasized correctly for those of you that's one of my questions um I do have a question a quick one though yeah sure is let explain to me this first reading seems to me like when we've done these first second third readings of these policies there was no making any changes they I didn't think they were drafts it was like this policy needs to be read three times so we would approve it at once or maybe we would just
130listen to it it was just presented and then the second time it was presented and the third time we would vote on it right is that what we're think of it through this context right in those other policies what we're generally doing is taking an msba policy that pre-existed and essentially changing a word here or there usually for legisl from legislative impact but but not necessarily maybe we as a board because we have the power to do so want to tweak that policy slightly to be more you know specific to our district or our unique needs as a district in this particular case you're essentially creating a new policy out of almost whole cloth because this really isn't right cut cut and pasted from the old 606 because 606 still exists just it's just nice
131and long like 606 I mean that's good we got that that In fairness where that comes from is from a genuine desire to be much more clear uh and Define all of the different uh steps and rights and capabilities that we have to address issues within the system so you'll see a whole section in here on how we Define the informal I've seen uh process of of requesting evaluation of a resource that happened before but it was never written in a policy as part of the procedure gotcha so now the policy is longer because people in the community were saying I don't really understand the rule can you explain the rules to me so um uh in terms of length I'll I'll defend the length all day long because I think offers Clarity which seems
132to before that we thought it was too long you said but my question is this are we going to go through all this and sit and talk about all the things we think need changed or since this is just the first reading should we just call you and Randy and say Hey why' you do this why' you do that or we going to go through this all right here right now I think it's up to you as a director to make that determination if there's something in here that is a nail sticking up this this is I can't vote for this but and maybe you don't care if I do but if it's this is just the first it's draft all over it if this is just a draft M maybe we should save the
133energy here for these folks and we can kind of go through some of this some of these things and clean this baby up and give you some help I mean I know you guys worked hard on this sucker yeah what I would say is a lot of time was spent on this by a lot of people yeah but director Hyman and I also spent a lot of time on this I believe um hammering a lot of different things I talk to Randy too and to you that doesn't mean that we did you know unimpeachable work I was right not compl I think if if there are big nails that are sticking up we should discuss those in a public meeting setting instead of as a one director here one director there so we can kind
134of get a sense for what the board's attitude is towards if it's a demonstrative shift in terms of the tone or process it seems to me that if we're talking about transparency it would make a lot of sense to talk about those in this format versus um you calling me and me calling him and me asking John if that's okay you know which is again you know we get a lot done that way on less um high-profile situations I submit that in this particular situation the time in the public view is probably in my own opinion really important let's do it then I think it's important that yeah each director I mean if you got if you got issues and questions by all means this is the this is the place to bring them up
135okay so I think if you guys I got questions myself I'm sure yep we and there was no uh there was no vision as we came into this tonight to your point that we were going to walk out of here with Yep this is version two for the second reading right uh I know that Dr Han director Mera and others are are waiting for us to give notes to go back and you know work that's what I kind of wanted to understand so what we want is we want we want to hammer out broad Strokes on any glaring holes or anything we're looking for that so that we can that director Hyman and I can go back as the representatives on the policy committee and work with the administration to kind of short it up
136and and bring you an even cleaner version in in December cool Mr chair D director so you um clarified the red print that is in the uh current document uh what is the blueprint yeah I want to give a clarification on red too yeah some of the red is from previous policy previous previous so if you look at if you would lay the the current 606 policy next to the policy that exists here there's mirror in that language so the black ink is what was in the msba template so some of the red is pulling from existing existing policy and some of it is based on policy committee meeting that we had adjusting that language and then the blue is where director Hyman or myself or some other group of people took the red and
137then made some changes so that most of those are going to be really minor things like where we took and tried to make a term consistent throughout the policy there were spots in the policy where it would say requestor or it would say complainant and we said let's make it say the same word all the way through the policy that's sort of thing okay that's generally if you're looking I haven't looked at that PDF recently because we um Randy and are starting to get a little cross-eyed from looking at it but um it's it's so Mr chair the um the the previous policy you are you talking about 606 606 so but we have never had a uh Library we've never had this statute this correct so what's happening is policy 606 was all encompassing
138basically because resource as defined in existing policy 606 included Library materials based on the given nature of the making the difference between curriculum which also has an opt out compared to this as a free choice selection and that's where msba along with their legal advisement really worked to draft based on request across the state a standalone Library material policy so again we have pieces from the old policy that are appropriate and mirror into this so we're trying to look and bring that across for clarity yep um when you go back now the next step will be from this we after multiple readings which is why you have a first reading um director doning you answer your question it is to GA input and it is to take uh a public comment and have that reflected
139as we look to govern through this policy we just haven't had a brand new Standalone policy the last ones have been kind of our uh facility rental um pieces that way so this is unique in that process I said it'll be the first time in my three years on the board we've used the three- reading process to its full extent right that this this is we're going to actually use it the way that it's you know with all the elastic that's built in for all the different things that have to go into this and Mr chair I suppose since uh when did the MBS msba template come out that had be recent about a month ago it came out about two weeks before a policy committee meeting it was closer to that I I want
140to say it came out about the week before a policy committee met because our team had been working and Gathering the information there's the policy 606 trying to do all the research on things to go that prior to MSB right because we had no idea they you were at that meeting they didn't know are we going to have it in a month or are we going to have it in six months so as you know we put director Mera and others to work on drafting one based on the spirit of conversations we had at a retreat and said okay well let's let's look for all these so they were working on Crafting that so that's what some of your red language is is is from that work that was done yeah and then the blue
141language was when after the policy committee meeting we upon further reflection based on input from people that read it in the community based on calls from you folks um what whatever that we added at the very last minute where it was just clarification like in there we didn't have a definition of what a what the student calendar year was right so we said we got to have that in there we've got to Define that so that people understand the ground rules and I saw that that was good so that's why that stuff's blue so um excuse me one more um so um attorney ml ml for msba has uh the msba organization has approved all they're not doing the same process are they there's is a def they're done with their so when msba creates
142the model policy what they've done is they've looked at every state and federal statute as it applies to what's going to be governed through policy so that's where we rely on their professional um organization and research to come up with a template yes for a district and then districts then look at that template to have it respond to their specific need which is what happened in the policy committee so there's is their official template for their Library materials with the recognition that they're writing this for 330 school district and that there are things in there that just simply we felt at the policy committee meeting uh or at the policy committee level did not fit our district yeah Mr the only reason I was asking is because if they're going to start making some changes
143as well and and again if they would through a process most their changes come through some type of legislative action and recommendations but like you just found out in our consent agenda as they make those tweaks or changes we get a nice summary of what's changed according to statute that would be the same thing that would happen here okay director Breen just so msba is calling this policy 66.5 no oh yeah yeah they are we renamed it 631 to make sure there's a clear distinction a clear distinction okay most of our Point FES are when you see that that in brainer policies or addendums or forms or like if you look in our service animal policy for example right when you see a point five it's typically a form that needs to be filled out
144or something that has to be submitted back this isn't okay okay so that's why our policy committee recommended and I don't know I I got stuck on 631 I I think it was the the first one that was far enough out we didn't think it would get by MBA I recommended 666 nobody took me seriously oh my Lord um and then so the the stuff that's crossed out I mean sometimes it's crossed out blue and sometimes it's crossed out red so again if it's red it's going to be things that we took out of that Standalone MSB okay then when you get into the blue that's where again as the committee work when we were trying to Define you're seeing that's more of the independent commit work okay sandal so you had maybe said other
145community members and then you decided to change it to District resident sorry I'm just looking at one we wanted it to defined okay for example Michelle this student calendar day we have that I think and director Bo may have mentioned but that was in the written language so you know okay what is a student calendar day so we wanted to make sure that it got defined yeah and a lot of that was birthed from the fact that the first um request for re reauthorization this year happened during the summer months and it created some logistical nightmares with trying to put an ad hoc committee together okay because of the the structural or the the consistency requirements the makeup of what that committee is supposed to look like so know some of the people that need
146to fill that committee aren't available in the summer months so so we can go through I mean there aren't that many blue items for example so if you want to work backwards from those I mean I'm open to discussing absolutely any content in here um and also we can probably dispense with the the Mr chairman junk and just have a a conversation about this so just try not to talk over people and let's just do it so we can be more efficient sounds good Kevin works for me Randy RJ how about you David anything I'm ready to rock let's go where are we starting well why don't you start us off what do you got you said you couldn't vote for it what are some some of the main points that are sticking points for
147you in there so we can address those from the top this this first little thing I have is is nothing that would keep me from voting for it or anything but I thought we were trying to shorten it up and the first red deal we do gets into all this word smithing uh the Board of Education and BR Public Schools provides a wide range of instructural materials well I thought we were talking about library books in this deal on all levels of difficulty with diversity of appeals presentation different points of view I don't then it goes to the purpose of this policy by Direction delegate responsible I just think that's kind of confusing but that's all I got on page one and I certainly wouldn't not vote for it over that it's just fine it
148just seems like we're kind of saying the same thing twice I don't know I mean from my perspective I'm a corporate guy and I'm big on mission statements because what it allows somebody to do this is just a policy isn't it like we we're not selling anything here are we you know what I mean it's like simpler it's fine understand trying to cause a problem no I get you I get you but again I I I'm the first one to admit that you know I'm the I'm the I didn't know why use 10 words know the red was you I didn't know it isn't me I didn't write it it's him it's neither one of us the the only thing that I mean I'm going to raise an issue on the first page and it
149was something that came up after we you know left the committee meeting how is this policy we we say in the definition under Library this last sentence of that first paragraph the term also includes access access to electronic materials now this is the definition of what a library is correct have we actually can can I director merthur would you mind coming up front just in case we get some points of clarity here because I think we talked about this at the at the committee meeting and you articulated it extraordinarily well at that time really okay I must have missed that well there's a lot going on I know it just had to do with definition of library in terms of um the ability to access materials online it was actually based on a question you
150asked yeah and how does this I mean I even asked it when we were talking about 606 electronic library I know she drinks so I apologize for dragging you up here but do we need anything more than just the term also includes access now well your question about definition of electronic materials and how it relates to libraries or is it about definition of access or both could be both I mean it's just you know so we're talking about hard copy books not necessarily no no the the the purpose here is to recognize that the concept of a library has expanded since any of us were in school when we were all students Library liary was a place you went to no magazines in library is there yes there are some periodical oh come on T
151so we know it's shrunk it's like it's shrunk Randy we used to have magazines we do have some paperbacks but the the purpose of the Digital Collection is it allows us to offer more than we can physically do by virtue of space and by virtue of cost and the cost of curation it's much easier for us to provide a digital option as a part of the repository so the concept of library is a physical space is an outdated concept what it is is a library is a curated collection of resources to read view listen to and engage in and my my my whole question here is how does the electronic library apply to this whole policy or is it just am I making too much of it am I am I overthinking it I don't
152think you're overthinking I think you're you're not lumping it the idea with that very phrase that you're questioning is the idea to to put encircle the whole thing and say that regardless of the presentational format or media type that's involved that the policy applies across all of those different things regardless of the medium the policy applies to anything that we would provide earlier tonight you heard a presentation from Ms wig talking about the use of Sora and that is a repository we use to provide text to students it is part of the library collection and it's a digital library mhm OA the other one yep and that's another important distinction because you know when we when we we get to the reevaluation of a resource section we need to be mindful of the fact that
153it it's encompassed in all of that not just a physical book that might be sitting in a a building within the school district that we got to be you know cogn just for pointed claric the hoopla belongs to brard public library and not us I get it kind of cool though that it's available mhm very cool that yeah we don't even that ra any questions for any we do in a sense it's public library okay but that's a good one we never covered that when we were talking what's that other than in the meeting you and I didn't cover that so the electronic stuff yeah yeah I just want to make sure that uh we have the appropriate language which you know within this if if necessary okay so again to simplify the process while
154we have Tim up here maybe we'll just go Section by section Roman numeral by Roman numeral and if directors have issues let's just go through them right y maybe that's the better way instead of bouncing around six pages so um director dinger's uh concerns as it relates to the length of room numeral one are noted and we'll take a look at that at the committee level if that's okay um I'd also ask that's longer in the original so I think if we want to look at or get feedback or Direction maybe do comparison or get suggestions from original policy 606 um because it's quite a lengthy statement the well the other thought and I don't want to put thoughts into your mind DJ but the first paragraph I mean I would assume that all of
155that is going to be discussed at some other point within this policy whereas the one short sentence which you know the second paragraph if we just removed the first the long paragraph and just have the purpose of this policy is to provide Direction and to delegate respon posibility for selection and reconsideration of Library materials in a way to me that that satisfies the the purpose as well that's what obviously can to but but again I'm not going to I'm not going to lose any sleep over yeah I agree okay all right should we move on to the the statement of purpose I think the only uh concern that's been raised in there so far was by director Hyman as it relates to the uh or am I in the wrong section on that one I'm
156sorry but went ahead yeah so we haven't really talked about anything in section two yeah um a couple of the things that we kicked around when we were discussing that was there was some semantic there were some semantic issues as it related to what the school board's Authority and involvement was so we looked at that to make sure you know we didn't want to imply that we're going to be selecting Library resources that is not our role we have paid professionals that actually you know uh are more qualified to do that so we want to make sure that Spirit of that was carried forward into that section of the policy I think that was the only thing that really um we did any further discussion on at the committee level meeting director M correct me
157if I'm wrong I don't recall anything else no you got it I think we just decided to remove selection of yep from that when we got to definitions um director Hyman recommended um that we add uh definition of uh student calendar year again for clarity around how the committee selection processes would go for ad hoc committees for reevaluations of resources es and all those things just to to create a level of consistency through the policy so people understand Who's involved what the Tim taes look like if there's a deadline associated with something um there you'll see as we go in the blue we're adding um some definitions of some deadlines we'll get into that further in the process but um that was really all we talked about in definitions that I recall Randy I don't
158well I brought I brought up the definition uh the state statute and federal statutes regarding uh uh obscenity and uh child pornography and uh I think we've when we get to it we we can explain what we did yeah so the the what director heyman's talking about is um he discussed the idea of putting those in this section and my counter to that at the time was the only statute that's listed in the definitions is the very statute that creates libraries and defines them at the state statute level that if you go to the very end of the policy there are some legal statute sites legal references in here and we could have some discussion about putting the Rel the relevant Minnesota state statutes in there which we didn't do in the draft version we
159figured we'd end up talking about it tonight problem with the state statute is is that is that statute is that the schools are exempt we've been through this before so yeah there's the state statute like if I had some of these books that I've seen for lack of a better term uh in my waiting room and you brought your 12-year-old in they grabbed it I could be in trouble if you gave it to the neighbor if you own a gas station and sold that to a kid you could be in trouble but schools colleges hospitals doctors offices they're all exempt churches uh of that that policy so it really does there's no we can put it in there if it makes everybody feel better but this specific one is school and Charter Li Charter School
160libraries only isn't it or is it all encompassing 124 d901 I need to pull it up I didn't open it up I apologize I don't know the answer to that question I my understanding in the context in reading the policy was that this policy defines School libraries oh that was my understanding as well and I believe that we got legal guidance on this issue as well and I think that's why msba threw it in there because I don't think they would have thrown it in there if it was a more Global statute about libraries in general to address director Hyman's concerns we added text around obeying all relevant state and federal statute yep that was we did add language besides you need to at the very end of it yeah can you explain that unfortunately
161director Adam going have to speak up I'm I'm sorry de on that side tonight so it's oh we have the sentence in there that you said but we have to go back to to what uh Kevin said it's a little further in it's at the very end under legal statutes uh we might want to consider putting the legal statute okay that's all but then we added a reference to it under the selection process I think didn't we yep yeah the new it's the blue 11 on page four it's it's new huh no just our comment that says that all materials in our libraries are subject to state and federal laws that wasn't in the msba template gotcha okay and then that allows us to tie back to if we want a legal reference if you
162know we want to add those specific State statutes actually yeah the two State statutes actually their sub statutes around child pornography and obscenity right just as sites we're not going to we're not going to verbally write out the policy to look just like it does under legal references on page eight um has our attorney reviewed that specific sentence Did do they have a recommendation about putting it in the footnotes so he's he's going to give us more guidance on that but I mean that's a state and federal statutes implied to all policy um so if the district feels that they have a special obligation to call out a certain statute they may but but those specifics are covered within the existing statutes listed that doesn't preclude us from listing additional statutes but that is uh
163State Statute and federal statute Will trump any policy that we attempt to create I hope that answers your question yes okay and I'm just trying to keep track of are we in section three sort of we kind of drifted in there because I think we felt like two were were good the only point of clarification was around what the school board's stated role in the policy is okay I think the section that we in section three was item number e was the item letter e was where we were headed next okay um okay just I didn't calendar day got the definition yeah okay again just point of clarification whether it doesn't change the mechanism or the way that anything operates it was just let's be specific so people when they come to do a a
164a resource request uh reevaluation request you know they understand the the ground rules and aren't told hey come back in three months I know it's not in the policy because that's how 606 reads today it's kind of like it just doesn't speak to it it's extremely vague it doesn't say you know anything about it so if somebody put in a a request for uh for checking out a resource and they did it in miday we would wait till the 30 days would be not including the summer if the if the relevant Tim taes to establish and get it exed can't happen within the student calendar year then it it will go to the to when we open school in the fall there's no way that uh director murther can get the necessary people on the
165committee because everyone it's the summer and by contract you know you can't force them to come in right so I think that was a I certainly think we would make a good faith effort to try yeah but but we need the latitude in policy to give us the ability to do it correctly y and we need the explicit definitions so that we can't be accused of not being transparent about the process correct okay and that's why it ends up being longer when you get to the end of the [Laughter] road it's no different than a I believe no different than a car concert I believe you guys and full disclosure I spend about 40% of my my day job reading and writing and redlining contracts when was the last time you B out a car
166contract so I I I just want to know my I just want to know my payment and interest rate and you guys give me the five sheets of paper five all right section five is looking pretty good to me right now which section section four I'm sorry four okay four responsibility yep so this one we did make some some sign uh some significant but small changes too and I'll start with so uh if you go this is the when you're looking at Blue so this is where you kind of get the the mirrored color of red black blue um the msbi MSB policy did not include resident or Community member um our current policy listed Community member we thought we needed to Define that as District resident where where are we at now we on
167page two which is a point of discussion whether because there's been a school of thought feel pardon the pun brought forward that we should limit this to one of the original drafts was uh limiting this to uh residents that had children in the school district so a point of potential debate I'm personally ambivalent about it I feel that if there's a Community member that feels strongly about something they'll find a Confederate parent to to enlist for their cause so and I feel like people pay their taxes so if they want to do it I mean that's kind of my take on it District resid yeah so we thought District resident but I wanted to open the door if anybody had a strong challenge to that notion so we could discuss it um again I like
168that we're saying specifically District residents yeah that's a big one and uh director donlinger and director Hyman and I talked about that one a fair bit one time you know because um the policy was vague before and we have other school districts Sartell and what's the other one that's just getting crushed with like 50 challenges from somebody that lives 200 miles away oh really yeah it's it's ridiculous um but we we definitely want an open easy and fair process for the people that pay taxes in our district that's my take on it that okay well good I thought we might have more discussion about that one um and then the rest is just semantics this is stuff where Randy and I kind of played around with a little bit where um uh for me saying
169steps in a policy to me implies There's an actual you know where there are sometimes some steps but sometimes it's a process that may not have defined steps it may vary depending on how how it unfolds so just like I said a little semantic stuff so if you guys have read through this and you have any questions about it let me know and I'll try my explain what we were thinking you on four four yeah did we did we talk are we still on section four M did we talk about about paragraph C that's where we're at now right yep okay did we did we talk about the the ability to seek the the adoption of Library materials or did we change that to selection we struck adoption or selection I I guess I don't
170care what we did was we removed reevaluation because it has its own separate policy or process defined later in the policy and this was you know in my mind was kind of strange because it was referring to something we talk about again later why the language these guidelines and procedures y that be published within this policy here here's my question is who approves the guidelines it's a superintendent's design should be responsible for the development of guidelines procedures and then we're going to we're going to put it on this policy as an addendum so are we going to have that when we decide what we're doing so there's an existing process now so what happine yep so what happens is based on whatever is chosen in this policy to govern that process this policy is St
171that the superintendent and design which will be teaching and learning you'll just and really we work with our uh District uh librarian um to develop that process so at your last if you remember in your June or July board meeting you actually had a copy of that existing um process we have to make sure my job is that was for the elementary schools wasn't it no that was for all of our materials my job as a superintendent is when that processes uh guidelines and procedures are developed I have to Ure sure that it aligns with the policy that's been developed to govern it so so the existing some of it may change based on what's adopted for that selection of material so the final publication then of the procedures would be pending the completion of
172this document so if I'm tasked with that or someone in my position or tnl is tasked with that we need the policy completed before we can write procedure to fulfill it so in the end we will attach it to this policy but it doesn't need to be brought forward as part of the approval process for the policy well okay remember as the board we have oversight over all of it yeah the idea is to give them the flexibility to be able to adjust more rapidly than we can to changing conditions and then bring it forward for us to y or nay on okay I just it's like the pricing for renting the facilities like the softball fields we didn't want that embedded in the policy because it creates a bureaucratic nightmare in terms of trying
173to modify that policy same concept that makes sense to me the other side that makes sense to me is if we just put the right stuff if we just kind of get this right up front with what they're going to bring in then maybe there won't be problems in the future y we can bring forward you know parallel text the in anticipation of the completion of I mean there's a little bit of a chicken and an egg problem there yeah it's fine it's fine like you said we can go back and adjust it if we don't like it the only thing we want to do is be transparent so however whichever method feels the most transparent that's the one we'll do okay all right I believe that concludes our uh board discussion on four now
174five on the selection I got to go because I'm not operating off the most recent the one that I originally was taking notes on which are reflected in the PDF that you guys are looking at so again clarification of C some of these existed in current but black would be the recommendation from the msba policy red um is including what was in our existing policy and it could be additional language that was add so like I said we had uh director Hyman had brought forward a policy that was written by constituents that they wanted considered as well as a follow of document by director Hyman and director Don linger to Ed within the selection material so we tried to take those feedback and inputs and expand upon the selectional liary resource so that's like your
175items seven through 10 seven through I think now there's 11 well 11 is well yeah 11 would be based on director Hyman's recommendation on referring back to the state and federal laws correct sorry yeah you and I talked too about under paragraph five uh let's see here once just a little tweak there it seemed odd that we would had qualify in one or more of the following like if it qualified in readability like we just felt like you know that was just the words needed a little smithing that's it the last two we we we both kind of had questions I mean what's high interest for an intended audience and readability I mean those were two questions that you and I talked about I don't know if it's worthy of removing them but what's an
176atypical student that's in our existing policy what is it so I so it's it's it's focusing so we're not just looking at one student population for example I'll think of our special education students some people might describe them as an atypical student based on certain needs that they may need for reading level or abilities like that um it could be a a population of students but it's meant to be that we're not just focusing and keeping everything on that one area we're looking for is a diversity of interests in students students have some some students have very specific if if not I don't want to use the word eclectic interests but interests different than the majority they may not be following the Vikings over the weekend they may be following something else and you want
177to be mindful of making sure that they have opport unities to see themselves and their interests in the offerings of the library as well just like we want to make sure that any curriculum a child is able to see themselves in it we would want the same opportunities for those for children as well in the library so so we like kids wear Green Bay jerseys on Friday crazy just kidding so one of the constituent pieces that came forward for discussion during this was there was a document that was submitted to the policy committee where there was a recommendation that we have a an article in here related to that all the library materials I don't remember the exact wording but should be in English and our legal council rejected that oh yeah um as did
178a majority of the committee for a variety of reasons one was why wouldn't we want second language students that are trying to learn other languages if they're in a French class or they're in AP Spanish why not have some Spanish materials in our library and two what would happen if a primarily Spanish speaking family moved to the area wouldn't you want some resources for those people um I mean I'm I'm not advocating for switching the whole library to Spanish just to have some some reflective materials for people that come here and we felt that that language would have been overly restrictive and actually I believe you agreed with that too director adman yes yeah I did it uh after I got my arms Twisted a little bit but the the uh the the English language
179learner language that we received also had exceptions under state law so I don't know what those you know we never even got into the discussion but e it's not a deal breaker let's put it that way but there were there were exceptions for that so certainly as we develop literacy skills and students in independent reading is a part of that literacy framework independent reading can take the place in a different language it's the same processing same cognitive skills so students who may not be reading English at their grade level might be reading above grade level in their native language we would still want to support and promote the cognitive and intellectual development of that child regardless of whatever language they're speaking in uh director Mur you might not not be able to answer this we
180might have to do a keyword search but going deeper down to item 11 a couple of our public comments tonight centered on the American Library Association I believe that we're that that this draft strikes that's the only mention of the Ala in this policy isn't it it's in b b too mhm it needs to go they need to to go it's too bad they've been around for 145 years I think they probably were you know Michelle talked to me about this a while back I've done a bunch of research on it for just KCK assuming you survive this four states have gotten rid of them nine states have them up on bills to remove them out of their schools it's is a it's a it's so would your proposed edit to that red language be
181to just stop the sentence at um and appropriate review I'm not an expert um nor do I I you know say that I am but is there another resource we could use you know Michelle mentioned last meeting scol a couple meetings ago Scholastica well that's a company you'd be dealing with a vendor at that point you wouldn't want is that what it is right I mean I'm just curious because of the into it but what I would say is remember the red was added that in reality the msba didn't go that far they left it vague the not vague but they they didn't Define it to the extent that we did the Ala stuff was the Ala the there the Ala is large enough that there's multiple different things we have to be careful that
182we don't mix up here one is our current existing policy references ala language on the right to read okay and that that's a lot of the text that's behind the msba policy it's a lot of the text behind what we're trying to do you know whatever the politics and and personal life situation of members of the LA who work there those are irrelevant pieces of information so the question is if someone were to look at the list of rating services that the Ala lists shows are where are the concerns there that would be the factual conversation to have about the Ala so does the Ala provide many yes it's a very long list it's probably got something for everyone on it which also means it probably has something that everyone's going to be uncomfortable with
183on it so let's not use it as a reference what are our Alternatives in terms of consensus on a reference because we could spend an awful lot of time here coming back to our own personal viewpoints and not and trying to hammer out which ones we want to use only to find that in two years five years six years they don't exist anymore these are transient structures online whereas when you have a Professional Organization what they're doing is they're curating it for you so I I still recommend that we consider the Ala but if there are concerns we should address them and we should dig them deeper into what's on the list that the ala has that's creating the concern that's my well taken um my potential Counterpoint that to that would be that if
184we adopted the boilerplate policy that was presented to us none of that's in there that is correct you are correct but we've already made the choice to pull from other policies both our own from other districts some self-created text so in my mind that the conversations open if we're closing that portion of the conversation that is certainly the purview and the will of the board and we will certainly make it happen I think that's one of the questions of clarity that's come is how are you like where are your reputable sources and so to me there's you know rather than just saying we're going to put all of our expertise on a media specialist one of the challenges is what resources or what reviews are they going to have access to and what is the
185transparency of that so that is one of the waysin for the language like Tim is saying because of that long review list yep there's many services embedded in there so to me i' still want Clarity around that um and would recommend that so then it's not a challenge of uh employees uh Direction more so looking at reputable review so do you think that the School Board Association did this for what three 360 schools and you think that how much what percent do you think put something like this in there they just left it the way that they wrote it it it's quite a few did because it's it's really trying to put the burden of do you leave it to an employee or well it's not just an employee right it's the principal correct if
186you look at how this media specialist is AR I right on that so what you're looking at is the library media specialist shall consult sources and specialist experience in library material collection appropriate for the building students okay so what that American Library Association does is look at a long list of reviews right so there's so if you're not if you're going to remove that one of the questions we had is how is that reviewed how did that get picked and so I think that's a question when we talk about Clarity and having that transparency being able to identify that so we can control what employees we hire you can control employees actions then you have zero to say what the American Library Association says so why would we want to take the power away from
187you Dr Han and give it to the American Library Association American Library Association didn't get elected here didn't get hired here or anything here so why and and hey they're probably a great organization but when there's 13 states kicking them to the curb that's 20% of the country it makes me it concerns me look at the science of reading 17 States had outlawed it already 23 had it on the deal Minnesota did it too so these things change and it takes time for government organizations uh Direct word was telling me about today to react to the changes that have happened to good old you know businesses I mean where's General Electric everyone had a General Electric Refrigerator at one time General Motors used to make ref they're all gone right so things change and I
188just feel as though since the Schoolboard Association didn't put it in there what's the big deal you can be in charge Tim you got to vote then you got to say in the whole deal we respect you and the American Library ass Association is somewhat falling apart I mean you heard people speaking about it today I knew about it we brought up two months ago um states have literally thrown them out do you know why states have thrown them out I don't know because they're they're starting they're not here's what I believe I mean you could read for it for days just like director mura said right but what I believe is that instead of having a neutral position where there's to evaluate the book books now they've started to have an agenda like he
189called it a political agenda and they're starting to that you know the reviews aren't as as crystal clear as they used to be and so they're kind of pushing an agenda and states are getting sick of it and it's not like these big crazy you know Missouri is Missouri a radical political State have you ever heard anything about Missouri it's that's a big deal you know um I don't think they're hard wrers uh Montana Texas of course is Florida Florida just got it done nine other states I think they'll have it done before the year is over so when you have 13 out of 50 states I don't know why we needed in our policy when it's nothing that we can control where people you hire you get to interview them you can look over
190their shoulder a little bit and figure it out would make me happier so I mean we got to do this a couple more times so it's something we could talk about later we got our Retreat coming up in two weeks we can go through it then and just move on today but I think that's something that really should go I want to make sure that whoever you know that the professionals we charge with this have the appropriate resources you're not going to just generate a list of 5,000 books and you know as a professional if that's my job that would be my entire job and so I would be looking for reputable sources that are going to help me make those selections so I think we don't want to leave this person kind of stuck
191out there on an island without having access to resources and if and if we want the the onus to be on them without feeling like they're covered by okay these are yeah these are the the resources you can use I think we do need to have that conversation where would you go to find it Well I mean would it be like the Teachers Association or the Minnesota superintendent Association I mean there's I don't know I think that's where we can look at alternatives to that because I agree you don't you want to have some language around that for that staff and for the the process itself it's about identifying resource not obedience to someone else's decision I I I certainly that that's why I'm just was recommending the examination of what they list as their
192they will list multiple different ways to evaluate a book all we're looking for tools we're not looking for a decision to we don't want to surrender I agree with you completely we don't want to surrender our control to any Outside Agency what we do need is some outside agency and their expertise for us to look at and make our own decisions about that's what we're looking for how many books do you put in the library a year is it thousand is it 500 well Sarah said 5,000 that seems kind of like a lot but maybe it's not I mean how do I know it it's it's over a thousand a year um we need a thousand titles or a thousand books is that books or is that uh in electronic formats all of the above
193so it includes all of ours correct all all of the above okay um so this would so you're well over a thousand um I can get you a just it's large enough that no one person can pick out those thousand books exactly it's it's just not it's not a realistic Happ we need to have access to Professional Resources more than one in order order to inform us to what we do that's why we look at book lists as much as we do I would think that there's other so companies associations my question is if we don't include identified by the Ala are we saying that the district cannot use them as a resource I don't think so I think we that's what I mean I think we should just get I mean yeah if we
194take it out then I guess we're not saying that you can't use them it's just that the way it's written right now is that's our that's that's our grid right there we got to follow the American Library Association I mean would it be it says okay item 11 is struck text but the the the verb there was May reference reputable material so it was conditional that we had permission to do so it didn't say we had to do so and may is included in B which is the item in question at the moment correct yeah B is the U latest revision so maybe the administrative takeaway from this before we go to the next reading it would be to to see if there is some other alternative to Ala and if there's not then the
195debate at the next reading becomes over being specific or being non-specific in my mind either we allow it to stand as it is now or we just take it out and leave it vague and let the professionals do their jobs that's how I see it for letting the professionals do their job well I I I agree isn't there something out there besides the Alo that that would provide this well that's the takeaway I'm hoping that resarch as a board member I want to be convinced that the ala has an agenda that we can support okay y so yeah so are you going to do that research on your own I I'd be happy to look into that as well because I I mean you you said that's why a lot of the states are going
196away from using ala but I guess I I'd like to know that's specifically what is the reason and if it's because they don't like some of the re resources that they're selecting because they address diversity and equity and inclusion that I would have an issue with that yeah I don't blame it the way I understand it and I'm not an expert so don't quote me but this um I was surprised that it came up today um but I'd already kind of researched it myself is that this woman that got put in charge of the Ala thinks that the public should raise your children and take the control out of the parents so you can read her memoirs you can watch her YouTube videos it's all right there for you and these other states are like
197Hey we're not going to let you take our kids away from our parents you know these are our state's kids and we don't we're not going to take this agenda and the Ala is like we're huge we're big and we got a lot of De so we're not making any changes and so people are firing them is the way I understand Michelle I'm not saying I'm perfectly right but you can watch her YouTube videos and I I I need some time to take a look at that before I make a decision to completely remove that resource from our your request is granted okay I will give you until uh December 11th all right I'm on it um but it does speak to uh another thing that kind of came up again tonight which is um
198I think there's a lot of there are a lot of misconceptions over what layer and what organizations dictate what happens where in other words there were some comments about mde driving certain things that mde doesn't drive mde is driving nothing with this policy nothing this is msba they are not the same organization in fact they are at odds as much as they work together and so that's a huge point of clarity that as you're out there Reading Writing and sharing on social media understand the distinctions and know what you're talking about um it's important and that goes for us uh as well but it goes for everybody those are not the same thing and the same thing is the state can come up with as many plans as they want to but unless it's a
199mandate the six people sitting here decide what happens in this school district not the state of Minnesota in most cases unless it's a statute hopefully or unless there's money attached to it well that's that's ear marks and that's mandates right which we can't control we can't control that we can control what we can control and what we can do is we can look at a state recommendation we can look at even a state mandate that doesn't have statute behind it and go if we want to I think so I'm sorry I didn't mean to Soap Box there but it was important to me because I think this stuff gets convoluted and it's really making this process that much harder because of this conflation of these different organizations and what they're what they're doing now I'm
200not talking about Ala I don't know anything I'm like Michelle I don't know anything about Ala so as to to just put a a period on this for tonight um we're going to look for a potential alternative to Ala to describe in the policy but we have the option to leave it as is knowing that the Ala has layers and maybe it does it is a reputable source as a potential source for our staff or we're just silent on it like the boiler plate policy is seems like those are yeah my confession is I'm I don't I don't have a lot of passion about the subject is that piece of it um all right so let's move on um to C real quick um we just added the time frame on C to dictate um
201once um uh director Hyman had an issue with again the msba policy was like Library materials that are outdated no longer can be removed and whatever and then he's like well how often when do we look at it who does it and and so all we said was here's a time frame so this is what was suggested does anybody have any concerns about that okay next would be item six at the bottom of page four which is uh specific to the Middle School um near and due to DJ's heart what we did here was shorten this a lot it's awesome and all we're really going back to once again is the idea that you know we're going to hang our hat on the fact that there's mature content in there mature being a very subjective
202term yep and the idea that um Harry Potter is flagged as mature in our Middle School library uh and you have to have a permission slip from your parent to check that book out so that's the ideas that we're we're hanging our head on the idea that there is there is a there is a uh there are guard rails and uh gatekeeper uh methodology in place so that not every kid can just walk out of the Forest View Library with any book it's a b it's a bonus is it it's is it the same thing we have now yes is right so I have a question um can if I'm in fifth grade can I go read those books when I'm in the library like if they have 45 minute Library time can I go
203read those books and get them and and my second question is are they separated so we look at that up there that section over there is the mature ones there shouldn't be any little kids over there so the media specialist could look up and be like hey hey hey you know you belong down on that end you're not supposed to be down here or are they just mixed in alphabetically or you know how libraries are with their number systems I don't know how they do it these days but subject to correction by director Mera I believe they are just mixed in by by categorization and they are open access with green dots on their spines to indicate green tape Green Dot Green Dot is a genre indicator green tape is the indicator that it's mature
204so to make everyone a little more comfortable I mean I don't have any kids in the school but the people that voted for us and that have been sending us letters and emails and on both sides I don't know how anyone could get mad if those books just had their own area the mature books the seventh and eighth grade books go over here the little kids books go over here or the sign out books have their own section what percent of the the library are they actually sign up books does anyone have any idea I mean is it 10% is it 50% is it 5% I mean how big of a thing is this has got to be a big thing for us obviously because we talk about it almost every meeting or someone talks
205to us about it so is it what what percent are we talking about I don't have the number at hand you got one of those spitball numbers what do you think but I don't really see a kid going into the library and saying I just want to read a mature book I'm going to go to the mature book section they're going to go to I love to read fiction or I love this author or whatever it is and there's going to be all kinds of books there and there might be one with a with a green piece of tape on it and it might not be the one that they choose so I mean it's it's not the way people naturally look for books I don't think well I was never much of a reader
206when I was going to the library I remember I was remember I was at Franklin they had a book to learn how to blow smoke rings mybody told me about so I was in study one day I figured that out truth I wouldn't found it um yeah I don't know is that is that is that a consolation that that you guys could get on board with that maybe Mak some parents more comfortable is it worth talking about or is that just a complete nightmare for the media Specialist or resource what are they what are they called media specialist yeah there it just nightmare for them or is it something that's kind of easy and wouldn't be that hard to police oh well there there's a couple of questions in there I I would like to
207hear from the media specialist about how confident they are in the supervision of students in the library because in the end that comes down to to to that issue um my experience with the library and I'll be honest it's limited I'm in there passing through a lot but I don't spend a whole lot of time sitting down with kids in the library this point of my career is they tend to know what they're going to they tend to go get it and go straight to the checkout and they get they they go through the process there with with the with the clerical who who's managing checkout um beyond that I I would think that we want to hear from the media specialist of the library how confident she feels doing that I I would share
208the concern about grouping them uh first of all makes them easier to find yeah it it will make them easier to to find but um a Green Dot easy to see the the normal experience isn't that they're looking for mature book they're looking for a book of interest and it may happen to be mature and and that's where the adults have to become involved as part of that process so you know the kid who pulls a green tape book off and goes up if they didn't know it was a green tape there's a learning moment there there and that the adults going to work with them on that um if they know that it's a book that they're not supposed to have they're not going to be able to check it out you know they're
209not going to get past the gatekeeper uh no kid has so much time in the library they're going to be able to sit down and just read power through uh you know an 800 page novel uh and find you know something puent um unless they have very carefully planned this entire Endeavor in which case when they're mixed in general population right there's a shelf and there's some green tape now that green tape could be on there for a whole bunch of different reasons violence any number of different things that would be again subjective and may not even be of concern to 85% of the parents of that particular age group plus the maturity of a reader isn't really driven by chronological age it's driven by their ability to read and absorb information and process the
210themes you know I know fifth graders that read well ahead of 10th graders right my kids couple of them were like that one not so much but um to Tim's point if you group them then people are like oh well that's the taboo section what's in there that's really hot and I'm going to go try to find that well then now they they can even they can find that outside the library at that point because now you've you their cell phones will find it for them far faster than anything in the library that's kind of my take I mean I I I I because I had the same concern on the whole thing that's why I don't know why it's a hard decision but that's what it my take from day one if it's all
211available so why I'm just wondering why our tax dollars are buying it that's that's that's been my argument from the first day this ever came up at the first meeting I heard about this is like it's is easy to me but I well it's easy until you get to the subjective part where something that's offensive to one person isn't offensive to somebody else I had to go to a meeting and talk about the movie Foot Loose Myself because we had Community member that wanted a mice and men out of the library and out of the curriculum they did not want my 10th grader to read it and I said you control your own kid my kid's going to read the book because there's teachable stuff in the book otherwise we can't dance here either you
212know so it's it's all subjective that's the problem with it and I understand those concerns I'm totally on board with the concerns and I have no problem with these folks that are making these uh requests for reconsideration it's well within their rights and to for their concerns 100% agree um but there's a there you know again like when we were in school there was stuff particularly violence but there was stuff in those libraries we didn't know about until you know back then that was all there was there was no internet there were no cell phones somebody found something cool then it was like okay well hey check out page 49 on whatever right I mean I don't think that culture exists anymore to speak of it may not well I can go on to a
213website and find out the pages and well they can read it well they don't have to do it's been brought up in these meetings it's already i' I've got a whole thing at home I can show you every one of them I mean so yeah I mean like Cliff's Notes for me I just go heyy it's a slow night well just to reassure you DJ I one of the first questions I asked and I think at the last policy committee meeting and hopefully uh uh Tim and Kevin will verif I asked the question what do we need a library for yeah I with you I I mean and and and we had a little discussion about it but I mean it was a question and yeah we do need a library but all right so
214anyway we're in the middle school section I mean I think we could to your point DJ we could take a look at you know having a at the Comm policy committee level we could look at a deeper dive into is there some review of how the middle school is arranged but I don't think we try to codify it in this policy right to me it would it would be a separate process that we would go through and then if we all you know fundamentally agreed on something that we wanted to make some fundamental shift in how we did that then we could address it as a board action item well something to think about you know it would maybe make some people happy and you know we need to put some Faith back in our
215schools I think it's lacking the trust like sourcewell said we need to put trust back in 181 but anyways what do you think about number seven sure what you got uh and we're getting in the meat of it for real really well this is the this is the flavor of the day right is the reconsideration process I I think we could just scratch it a but whatever uh the question I have on this deal is when I read number two I've got so many notes it might be number three um c yeah under C is can because right now the way it's written is the principal could just say if if a parent went and complained about a book in the library if the if it somehow got in there and the principal didn't like
216it they could just remove it right which happens dozens of times a year already yeah it's s of like uh just doesn't have WR process around it right but it doesn't read like that's possible on the new policy that's the whole reason for the section c which paragraph you have say the principal can take the book out they're going to Pro says they're going to process the request yeah well why right now the principal could just remove the book I think that's so they could come back part of the explanation that they come back in section two is to come back and say we removed the book or we moved it to the high school because we upon review because it came in is a b part of a batch of books again this happens
217all the time we've shuttled it over to the high school right so that's what the that's what the Community member that asked for the informal review is entitled to within 10 days which is the blue that you see there so the idea was to empower at that hopefully a large number of those to be dealt with without going through the formal process I just don't see where it says that the principal has that power good point I mean it's to clarify that in section three in the first sentence because that feels like where it's implied to your point director Donna linger it's not stated clearly yeah it feels like we could put some words in one that would give us a little more uh Direction TS that's a really great Point DJ it's a good
218catch I think at the same time we want to clarify that the principal still Bomb by policy and protocol as well yep I think that's a great takeaway so the principal can make a decision an informal decision to remove a book yep already happens today and why don't they do that with every book that uh because I go to the media specialist and have a dialogue about the the the value of the book or whatever because I mean let's be honest I could have um I'll use Kite Runner as an example I can show up tomorrow and I can challenge Kite Runner and then so the principal just removes it because I said so no I I'm not at all in favor of that I I'm I'm wondering when a principal decides to remove a
219book and when they decide to retain it what what are they using using as their guide to unilaterally just remove a book because of I think they're working directly with the media specialist and the media specialist then is reviewing with the principle The Selection guidelines that were used to choose that book and what other resources and when we talk about what resources they vetted that book against to provide a broader context to that okay book therefore as if it's not something simple like we've talked about some of its age level or developmental appropriateness it's moved um then that principle will have to give the complainant as I think we've defied in here WR in writing why they're not just going to automatically it and it initiates the process however there's chances where they're going to
220just say no but the library media specialist that doesn't align with our guidelines or not and that has the ability to do that which has happened well and you have as Tim mentioned you have a thousand titles coming in right so some of these are bought in bundles and so nobody's ever read them well sure right in the end what happens is somebody finally reads it and goes you know like but wouldn't if we have gotten good direction from the American Library Association the well there's a number of different resources that are used it's not just that that's just the that's the large you know Upstream framework that's the only one we're recommending in this the only one in policy but if you think about when they're doing the actual process of ordering books they
221have what it good reads or whatever it is that they use we're not recommending only one let let's come back to the text let's make sure we understand that in those sentences it says may and it has the American Library asso is one of them but other professional organizations professional reviews vendor book lists recommendations from vendors there's multiple places that we're collecting information from a lot of the decision is based on the relationship you have with the vendor so Scholastica was brought up earlier you know lots of books are purchased through Scholastica not just here but but everywhere are we going to occasionally find one that we just don't think that fits absolutely um I will I can give an example uh four years ago a book for second grade social studies uh was acquired
222and the teacher had a concern with it principal not knowing what the policy directed to do asked me to examine the work and I took a look at this and I'm like I'm not feeling this is grade level appropriate so I went and found my literacy specialist and said first of all talk to me about the reading level of this text and they said no reading level is appropriate but content and vocabulary were inappropriate for what was a second grade book so at that point the decision was made should we move it or should we eliminate it because its reading level and the nature of the content you know lots of you know butterflies and flowers and stuff moving it to the forest moving it to Forest Ed Library where the language might have been
223appropriate the the the the the there wasn't an audience really we felt for that book so the book was removed we sent it back to the vendor got store credit and looked for something else okay so there's going to be times when that occurs and it's usually an attempt to catch something that got through okay that's the intent there the intent isn't to subvert the policy okay um the par every once a while we get a book that that comes through some of the books we come through have uh particularly at the younger level you know firmer language that we probably would want for some audiences okay it's not a teachable moment for a second grader it's a teachable moment for a fifth grader definitely a teachable moment for a seventh grader but this is
224where I need the principal who understands grade level appropriateness to weigh in and give them that ability who reviews the books when they are sent to us in a bundle before they get put on a shelf well they get stamp they just get put on a shelf and then we no they get they get stamped so like anything else you know we're we're purchasing agents so we have rules that we have to follow as as we purchase things so as as books come in the very first thing they do is they're stamped as the property of of isd181 and then they are directed to whatever they're supposed to go no again thousand books and we've covered this multiple times no one's going to sit down and read them all someone might look at a title
225and go huh set it aside and then look at it and then decide whether it continues on with the rest of that's my question but you're not going to do that for over a th to 2,000 books a year they cannot be done understand my question is though before they get put on the Shelf do somebody kind of just take a another quick review and just gauge through them or not no okay is that not unless there's something that jumps out them whether it's the picture on the cover or the title that gives them pause something has to trigger that reaction it won't be every single book gets thumb through through someone may pick it up may read a blurb and it just may do that but it there isn't there isn't a a universal
226screener that you can apply there at least not in a reasonable fashion well I realize this is anecdotal but isn't it fair to say that a significant number of the books that are moved from say an elementary school library to the middle school or the Middle School to the high school are discovered by Educators yeah it's usually the teacher that finds them how many get removed from the high school pardon how many a year get removed from the high school library through curation or through self or through selection through uh somebody looking at it and saying now this a't even appropriate for high school I do not know okay that's no it's just a question Tim I mean no I I do not know I've never asked principal Anderson if or principal Rus if she's
227ever removed anything where are we at well we were on three but now that we're back on this American Library Association deal I have to read paragraph a I just can't help myself I'm sorry I want I I'm not trying to hold this here I'm not trying to keep this here all night I really not the Board of Education supports principles of intellectual Freedom inherit in the First Amendment of the Constitution of United States here we go and expressed in the library Bill of Rights of the American Library Association and and the students right to read statement from the National Council of teachers of English attach a copy of the library Bill of Rights is attached so it's like you know this we just kind of keep going back to those guys so anyways I
228just like to see that whole first paragraph scratch because I don't really know why we have to tell people that we support the principles of intellectual freedom in the First Amendment because my Lord I would hope we we should be teaching the First Amendment not only do we follow it right so I just wonder how important that paragraph is well I think it's important to the reconsideration process to point that out that that's going to be one of the tenants that we specifically are looking for when we reevaluating oh when you're re-evaluating gotcha well there you [Applause] go so I sent a not to read the Bill of Rights I sent an email response to um a Community member today who was concerned about um our policy and um we talked about intellectual free right
229I mentioned intellectual freedom and it is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from All Points of View without restriction and that is what we have in our policy is that we are supporting intellectual Freedom well for me I'd rather get wrapped around the axle on the content not the source I don't I I'm not going to operate under the presumption that every fruit from the Ala tree is poisonous I'm reading the Bill of Rights now which is originally written in 1939 and there's absolutely nothing in it that I can find to object with it's been amended uh as recently as 2019 but there's in my view nothing horribly controversial it's seven articles you can read it in about 20 seconds um but we can side we can sidebar that at
230some point or or come at it it's not a Jailbreaker for me okay so are we done with uh the informal paragraph C I believe so me flip back over to the PDF sorry and again there we just eliminated request uh to have complaintant we use that terminology throughout the uh remainder of the policy so and then great care was taken throughout here both in the red and the blue to make sure that every step in this process has a timeline to it so everybody knows when I do this this happens this is how long it takes um again 606 had a lot of vories as it related to that which I think is a huge part of the frustration that people were having with it I'm sure there are multitud or multiple areas of
231frustration but we went back and made sure so there may still be a hole in there that somebody will catch but I I we Randy and I went over this a bunch and I think like we've got and eventually what we'd like to do is take this and and turn it into like a graphic that people can understand where you can look at it and go here's here's what this looks like visually Asos to H the flow chart yeah yeah your idea y yep that was your idea yep I love the idea I think it's great a one page diagram that's you have a problem this is what you do if the principal does this this is what you do if the principal does this this is what you do and it's it could actually
232be that easy um anything else in C there that people have concerns about there's a little bit of red under two or are we still in informal sorry I'm on informal I'm in D where are you at formal yeah form under formal you have the five years here page six now D D1 what paragraph one and under D that was the only change right yep that's the only change in there from the msba template yeah it's good what's your thoughts on that seems like a lot better than the old one which was you can never challenge it again technically 606 yeah once it's once it's been adopted it's there so at least this allows for some flexibility in the changing of the attitudes of a culture um for me it's a little dangerous it reminds
233me of days of y when people were challenging Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer um because they didn't like the historical portrayals that were in there um from a contextual perspective but you know it's why we have a process I guess and then the only other thing there was um the msba I don't know why that show's read I thought it was the msba one that said on an annual basis it was like a grand jury we would seat a committee and their job for the whole school year would be to review all and we were like no you know that is a death sentence nobody wants yeah so the idea was to create a little bit more of a flexibility I'm director of teaching and learning notwithstanding um I don't know why it's read it
234should have been uh just struck with the red line yeah it was I think we just Struck it and it redlined it for some reason this was all me operating off of Microsoft Word and I probably screwed it up we just know it's not going to be in there it's just not in there because it's we're going to do an a unique ad committee for each challenge that comes along and you'll see some more flexibility built in below where C in particular under two we Chang that from the principal as in every time we have a challenge to a high school library book that principal Rusk is the one that has to be on that committee now she can designate that to her Lieutenant principles that's good so we can spread the workload a little
235bit more that's the idea there okay so I I didn't see where this was addressed at all but um I'm curious when we re when when a a resource is reviewed and the decision by the committee the ad hoc committee is to retain that resource and that resources in uh series and somebody has an issue with another book in that series do we retain the series is that I didn't we did so it is in there well we made some good points that was a good discussion at the committee meeting said recommendations May got a strong I'm going let the other people describe it because I have I have have pretty strong feelings about this one so rather than and again when we talk about because one of the questions or concerns was acting outside
236of policy so that adoc committee really did that's what that means okay in in what I observed again they had this question so they did not have the authority ability to answer that question they deferred the question to the school board which is what their purpose was to do which it'll continue to be so what we've talked about in that report is if they have any questions or additional recommendations comments regarding regarding policy or process they'll put that in the report back on that and that's what this first committee did well the first Committee just didn't no like there that was our question discussed it as we discussed policy didn't address it so we just asked the question okay right and the authority then was the school board um this allows them to put in
237that report and then that can be responded to based on that what paragraph is that in uh it's number 4 d so we we talked about the report from the committee may also include additional recommendations or comments regarding policy or process so they've actually lived it and breathed it and learned a lot and I would hope as we go through this process the people that are actively involved um from all sides have that input to give that information back so we didn't want to say I mean the only example we had was that right um but we talked a lot at the committee meeting what one person may be upset about for sexual passage the next reader may be upset about violence that's depicted in the book they're challenging the resource on two different question
238so to remove something from a series we discussed that those were valid points and to me that would come back from the okay and and how this would read is in that it's coming to you the board which is exactly what that ad hoc committee did because they didn't have the authority they brought the question and challenged it back and said we don't have the ability to do this it should come to the board well and to put a little more context around for for you Michelle um I would use the examples of the ones that are currently going through the process the Sarah J moss books mhm right now their first one was four in the series the first one you did five five five so there are four books before that and then
239I'll I'll throw Harry Potter in there again because that's one I know pretty well because all my kids read it the the content and maturity level of the content in the sorcerer stone is a heck of a lot different than the content that's in Deathly Hallows so to grandfather in the entire series when somebody challenges right and it's upheld now I may have an issue with Voldemort blasting people into micr bits where that doesn't happen in sorcerer Stone they're just running around petting Griffins and stuff you know it's like totally different and and and fantasy in particular it's it's graduated because what happens is these authors write for an age group and then the books follow the kids as they mature so the idea that you can just subjectively okay an entire series based on
240the content in one book and then tack on the point that Heidi made which is just because you have a problem with this chapter with this piece of information I want to challenge that for a whole different reason and now I can't because it got grandfathered in where we we came up with the language and 4D was to basically say the committee can give that input and it'll be in the report that report comes to the superintendent just like it did it followed the exact process and the existing policy that recommendation that came from that adhoc committee then is moved forward to the board so as a superintendent would be my job to move any question or review of policy or review of process back to the board MH and facilitate that yeah the Sarah
241Moss books as being the same reading level they're not well they're the same reading level but the intensity of the content in I've read both of her big series it took me like three weeks but it it they increase um as you go through time there's a little bit more intensity to the final books like uh yeah yeah you you're thinking like Game of Thrones where people start dying day one but this isn't like that it starts out pretty tame it's a woman lost in the woods and she kills this thing by accid and you know it just it evolves from there am I am I characterizing that somewhat appropriately that is accurate from my reading the other the other big issue with remember I'm a huge nerd I read tons of fantasy I thought
242personally I think Ser J moss books are not very well written just for the record the other issue that we brought up uh Michelle was the policy states people have to read the book in its enti entirety well if you say well we're just going to keep the whole series well that just takes that whole policy and just blows it right out of the water so this is putting in language though to ry's point how they could recommend it how discussions occur in that committee if it's outside their scope they put that in the report it comes back before the board that was not defined in the policy that's what the intent of the additional language support well yeah it wasn't defined you mean you could have read through the policy and and came to
243the conclusion that well the policy says you got to read the whole book well if you're going to approve of a whole series well you're not reading the books then yeah but it wasn't we want this policy to be clearer we want it to be clear clear clear I guess I feel like it's irresponsible of us to retain one book in a series but to take another book in a series out but if if the content is not appropriate then that's a good point yeah yeah just have to think about this one I think for the purpose of policy again looking at 4D when you look at your role as a board to govern this policy is this language clear enough to say that in the report recommendations are coming again it's written to the
244point of if there's anything outside of the scope superintendent will bring that forward to the board it allows them like what are they supposed to do with these random questions okay it gives them a place to put in yeah okay and I think it leaves us enough flexibility right at the board level it comes to us and we want to make a decision or a determination based on that recommendation we don't have just have to send a group of 12 people back to read a whole series we can talk to some professionals that read it um and and can interpret it through the spirit of what happened with the one book okay to me that would be a more intelligent way to approach it um because you know the other the pragmatic side of me
245says I mean do we really want to be throwing resources at this at the at the level that we are anything that we can do to minimize the amount of drainage hopefully we won't be right yeah because the book I read was 25 hours oh really yeah and you're probably Prett fast reader taking me 30 I have to answer the phone 2700 times in the middle and and look up a few words oh shut it we'll make sure that some people have the ability to evaluate a graphic novel okay I'm going to do what the kids did in the Miss wigs class I'm going to do the audio book that's what I did they walk in my dog I do think there's some flexibility added to the policy about not making the principle you part
246part of the concern of the committee was there were three or four or five people who are identified by policy who have to always sit the new rewrite of the policy gives us the latitude to spread the love out a little bit I like that I I have a question about that committee and you know I probably get end up in the sah J moss book over this one but I don't understand why we have student Representatives I don't say I I don't want to discount them I know that's what the school is all about but I don't know why we'd put a 15-year-old or I don't know how old they are on these committees they can't vote they can't do this they can't do that so why do they get to be one six
247of the committee uh it doesn't make sense to me 114 there were 14 people on the committee but the new consistency if you look at the prior page we Reiger that that doesn't make any sense to me and if I was a parent I would be just yeah we tried to work backwards from how how how can we have an effective committee but yet the smallest committee that we can maybe we should have the basketball coach Jack Freeman has to have two kids off the basketball team help pick out the football basketball coach or the football coach or the hock I mean it doesn't make sense to me I'm not trying to pick on the kids I'm sure they're really sharp kids well and their parents had to give permission well I understand but I
248don't know why they're on there because they're minors and these seem to be a little more serious things to me than to have them on a committee now planning out homecoming uh prom all those sorts of things they should definitely be involved it's kind of their thing you know they mean they should be kind of in charge of it but when it comes to things like this you know it's like well should we have the safety patrol out there at 7:45 or at uh 5 to eight let's get we got two kids in the committee and they're both like 5 to eight 5 to8 we got to get the breakfast first we want the chocolate milk you know I mean I I think they do bring a relevant perspective and I mean they're they're the
249consumers of this material right and they have a different perspective than we probably would and and we're making decisions for them about them to have them in the room I think is important well that's there you go that's I mean makesense to me I mean there's value there I get that and they're insightful I you know these kids are really I sat with a few of them at the strategic planning thing and uh one kid that we had was really sharp and and he told he didn't even know what to do he said the biggest problem in the school was respect and that he told me that half the kids in my class would walk in here and give everybody the bird and he was he was over his ski tips you know I mean
250I felt kind of bad for him cuz we're all coming up with these sticky notes to put up and the poor kid is like what am I doing here you know he's very smart I could tell he must be one of your best students um and he's a good guy it's just I just felt like he's sitting around with a bunch of 40 50 year old you know like what am I doing here we also met with him in a just in a student group too did you yeah yeah on this one too and there was a lot of domestic debate about this at my house and um where I where I ended up falling on this was if it was six students where they have a reasonable amount of sway on the outcome I
251would be more concerned about that but I think student voice we have it on the equity task force and I will tell you that's been invaluable to the work that's being done there that makes more almost couldn't do the work without them that makes more sense to me than this situation but I get it cuz they're living it they see to me it's the same concept although like to your point not as it's not as I think um not as critical necessarily but I still think it to Sarah's point it makes it's important because they're the ones that they might come up with a perspective we didn't think of because we're 30 years remove removed from thinking that way they also might say that they want to have pizza and ice cream every day for
252lunch and you wouldn't let them do that so why there's 10 adults on the committee okay fine except if I was on the committee I'd vote pizza and ice cream too but so yeah that's I'm still going for that no I think that was that I meant to cover that when we were back on that page I'm glad you brought that back up because I've had a couple of uh community members reach out to me about that I I'm nothing against the kids yep it's just all right so we're down to uh where are we down to we're down to we're down to five yep uh we didn't do anything too fancy with this one we just um the the blue lines that you see in the final version are my fault um again as
253a guy who looks at contracts all day when you see the word reasonable in a policy or a contract um it gives me hives how do you measure that so that's all this really was was taking that out and putting definitive timelines and stuff in there so that we weren't you know like putting subjective terminology wherever we could there's enough subjective in this policy already without us adding it that was my view does anybody have any questions I I have I have one of course I can't help myself superintendent or superintendent STS in need shall provide the the complaintant and the school board copies of the reevaluation of the resource report the requestor which you guys are going to make that complainant okay may appeal the review committee's decision to the school board right 14
254days sounds good to me and then the school board shall respond to the appellant a written decision of the appellant request within six weeks receiving submitted form so does that mean that when we do this we don't have anything public we just no the six weeks is by Design so I'll give you a perfect example we we got our first appeal it came to me directly on Thursday well because of Veterans Day we' missed the time frame to publicly post the agendas so I made the call to push it to the December meeting for the appeal so that six weeks gives me or whoever the chair has time to get it scheduled for a board meeting where it is discussed in public that's the whole point of it how does that process work does the
255person that's appealing it come and talk to us and then the committee lead come and talk to us or we just hash it over ourselves or it's actually a good point I me the appeal has a a form associated with it so this individual filled out a form so they write out their reasons for it's a one page form it's not it's not there's a box where they can type in and and and we'll it'll be on the December agenda I can send you all the uh the form so you can see it um and and basically um maybe we do need a little more clarity around what that procedural process looks like that maybe those need to come to Dr Han's office instead of the individual school board members would make more sense to
256me I think it's appropriate as with all complaints or concerns that it goes through the office of the superintendent and therefore through the board memo and update it becomes an agenda item the intend for six weeks was to make sure that there were two board meetings schedule-wise possible for exactly as you laid out in case one was right up against a board meeting agenda couldn't be altered that the the board had an opportunity to respond the the other piece to that is the the board will want to have a conversation about what it's willing to discuss through the appeal so the the criteria and the notes of the judgment will all be provided to the school board at that point then is this a case where the reviewing is the case where the the concern
257of the appellant is being reviewed in terms of was the process correctly followed or is there a different substantive conversation occur occurring and if that's the case in fulfillment of the policy will the board have read the work in its entirety prior to a substantive conversation th those are some things I think the Board needs to decide for itself so we got to work that out maybe it's a retreat I think we could spend 45 minutes on it the retreat yeah I I would agree with you and I think that's I think we didn't do anything to Define that right what happened it first time it's ever happened well this one question the constituent asked was well am I as the appellant going to be able to sit the microphone or not we haven't defined
258that so I I think we going to do around that on what that sign off on it then why is there an appeal process yeah I mean well it did happen in 2014 what happened was the uh representative of the committee the ad hoc committee at that time came forward read the complaint and the appeal the board was supplied with all the information ahead of time but there was no presentation on it was you already have the materials you've read it is it a thumbs up or a thumbs down um which so is if I'm writing it that's how it's going to look well that's so here's here's the corre your in right we're operating off old policy so the old policy operates on the form that's been filed right so the process you just
259described was basically that you now have access to all the minutes all the pieces from the the committee process that's happened which includes both people who spoke um to retain the book and people who spoke to remove the book that's all contained in the minutes the form itself gives the uh complainant an opportunity to say why again or why they want to challenge that decision of the committee that's already described in the the form so one of the things when we look at this new policy is there's lots of different forms to develop that can create much more depth to that discussion and much more clear process right now we don't have that your current process right now is you have access to everything that's happened as as the entire public as it's posted on
260our minutes now we have you'll receive the the complaintants form requesting your consideration of why but to your point DJ I think it's important that we I because we didn't it's no nowhere is this stuff Illustrated what the process looks like a after appeal it's a form and then something happens do we yeah is it an action item that yes it is an action item that much is is clear right it will be an agenda item where we will vote on the appeal which is what will happen on December 11th or whatever that date of that board meeting is it will be an action item on our next board agenda um that well it'll be that night we don't have we don't get to think about it it's like you got to decide no here's
261so you'll get a copy of the the appeal like Kevin has it you can share that with the board you have all access to all the materials now now you as a board have the authority to interpret and apply policy so if there's a process you want to follow based on your interpretation of again now don't get confused with what could be new policy the existing policy you have the authority to do that as a school board so if you decide you're going to State this is how we're going to follow this process I can make sure I review that with legal that we stay within our guidelines of existing policy and then move forward but that is your Authority as a board but my how we decide that might impact that timet table that
262six week timetable because you may have a board member that wants time to actually read the the work in question I would recommend we talk about this at the board agreed I think that's a good idea is everybody in agreement with that yep okay I think that's a good idea I think we can Hammer that out I don't think it's going to be that hard it's just going to be a little time consuming so we'll spend some time on it on the 29th just one question in my mind there no names to protect in this I mean most all the names have been made public right it's all public record people can request it ex for the students the students name is right right right right right right but you're talking about appellant the I'm
263talking about that yeah there was a recommendation I mean as we've gone through this process and through that msba legal training that was one of the recommendations for a poor to consider is to compete is to keep the complainants uh information private just because of harassment that can't occur oh okay kiding so I mean that's a suggestion or guidelines when you look at that um that gets really hard then when you go into public meetings once you go into that public setting yeah yeah but in the original so does that protect if I want to just talk to the principal or fill that out so that's something to consider that hasn't been part of this discussion that can come forward in like concept I don't see how you could execute on it we we tried
264to honor that in the in the first meeting of the second challenge with the redaction of the formal complaint I mean in reality is it'll get out through other channels but the school district's not complicit in that in that release of information at that point and and we were asked you know were we in compliance with open meeting law and doing so okay something to consider then as well just make a note of that if you would please okay um okay think where we at six six I would recommend uh Alphas under the one two 34 should be Alphas not a numeric not a biggie in other words 6A 6 just the formatting of the the formatting yep yeah I have a qu I I can't find it in here I'm sorry my mistake I
265can you want to screw around I can find it didn't I read in here somewhere where it says that you cannot um go to the you cannot go and protest a book unless you've read The Complete Book is that in here someplace it's in here yeah it's in um um well I disagree with that if you read it if you read the media specialist doesn't have to read the whole book he told us they don't read the whole book no they do and the principal doesn't read the whole for the purpose to review of the policy they have to we're not get into a review I'm just going to I just going to walk in and say Mr Mera uh my child brought this book home I don't think it belongs in our school and
266you could read it get with the read a specialist whatever and go you know what you're were right DJ we're getting rid of this one I would say that falls in the informal process versus the formal process in the informal that's not the way it's written anyways I think I I feel like he disagrees but we can work to clarify language on that um I think are you referencing DJ the the selection of the materials no he's under reconsideration page five section c number three good good job well if we look at our policy what it says is it says to read oh yeah or review it's it's okay I think we should just clean that up because it seems a little unfair that make you read the book but then I can make a
267decision without reading the book I get it you well oh informally but theal when the formal then everyone needs to read the book that's what and and to go through the formal you'd probably want to read the book because you want to be able to State your case but the complaint I think this is stating that for the formal review the complaint needs to read I it's number three the last sentence the complainant must attest to having read or viwed the material in question in its entirety y because you're making a decision based on the material in its whole this is when they used go to the building principle that's the inform so honor System I mean it's a lot of work to do that thank you but someone's GNA if someone's going to make
268a good argument at the ad hoc committee they're going need to read read the whole no kidding because I'm telling you one thing right now I'm reading it right and I'm not going to there a't going to be no blo hards that are going to be talking about what is or wasn't in The Damp L and and I would just like to say content matters when you read a a book the whole content of the book is important not an excerpt I would counter that though with depends on what you're challenging right so if I have a website that I'm just Devil's advocating a little bit here I I don't disagree with you I just want to Counterpoint it a little bit if my specific issue at hand is graphic sexual descriptions and depictions and
269I have a website that's shown me exactly which Pages those are on if that's my only reason for challenging that book do I need to understand the cont context of the situation if I have a problem with it regardless of the context I think it's an interesting argument to have it is the particular challenge at hand is invoking on the appeal the state statute in fact so I mean I think it's situational and subjective just like a lot of this stuff is um I agree with the concept that you're bringing forward I I I I I would want to know because then if I'm going to judge this work from a maturity level perspective right so let's say it's in the middle school library understanding the context of the entire work is Uber critical to
270determine whether we're talking about are we removing this or are we moving it to the high school where maybe that level of content or the level of that explicitness is at least reasonably acceptable to a large number of people to move to a different location or something I mean I think there's a lot of layers to it that's all I was trying to say well that's going to be interesting but I would against the backdrop that all we're saying in the policy is that they will attest to having viewed or uh read the entire thing well we're going to you know bring us a notorized whatever I I you know yeah yeah wasn't read it either for me it was the same thing as saying they have to have a parent in the district it
271was like well you know eventually if if if somebody wants a challenge they're going to find somebody to bring it forward so why not just be transparent and let people yeah okay but like I said I'm not I'm not dug in on it but that's my take on it all right so what do we what's the motion what's the the motion is to approve the first reading with edits or things that they've been taking notes on as we've gone which are too voluminous for us to itemize motion motion to approve the reading with the notations for the next reading correct how's that and pursuant to additional edits that would come from the uh Retreat on the 29th okay that's get all that Janet so we may add to this we're leaving it open to be
272able to to create additional contexts that we add on the 29th at The Retreat and may are we okay with that not being a board action at a retreat because that's technically not legal what you're going to do is your board retreat is public so you're going to be able to have a public discussion yep so the discussion and right now with a first dra not preow through this motion and the adoption of this motion we pre- empowered those to be added in in my mind and at this point the district is obligated in first and second reading to take any input to bring back to the board for consideration remembering that we got two more readings of this we can clean it up in December as well I'll second it Janu January is the
273final meeting as far as the third reading not necessary right but next meeting we may have table for a meeting yeah not necessarily if we're not ready we wouldn't bring it for a third and final reading yeah there's no requirement that we have this sorted we just want to do it ASAP correct correct stand correct thank you thank you thank you so we have a motion from director uh Dinger without second from director spear did I have that correctly I did to what he said to um go to empower Administration to do the edits based on the notations and discussion that we had this evening and bring us a draft at The Retreat to further add content to for second reading at the December board meeting if agenda allows and we'll put them in a
274different color I don't yeah we're gonna start using Purple Perfect and gold exactly all right discussion great one just one last comment and I'm done talking about this we need to make sure in the legal references we had we referenced the Minnesota statute for uh uh abenity obscenity and Sh pry so that's a recommendation that's a recommendation I'm recommending yes so can be you know I would support putting that in there for further board discussion at the sure at the next reading yeah well we have to have it in there if we're going to discuss it I guess yep okay cool any other discussion hearing none those in favor signify by saying I same sign motion carries yay all right no that was that I I there was no way other way to tackle us
275no it needed to be done and good job and you guys did a good job writing it and it's a tough job I wouldn't want John I was thinking oh easy we got on the finance committee and that's piece cake that's tough well the thing is some some people in the community you know they expressed it in meetings before that you know we spent too much time on this on the library book I AG let's let's get after it let's get it done and then let's see where where everything falls but it's important everything we do is important okay so point of clarification on AC uh action item number three are we going to nominate someone for this or so this is this is what's been brought forward so you heard from uh thank you
276Tim uh Dr Paul dra with sourcewell about the board of directors and there's a lot of emphasis this is from school district seats currently there are two seats that are going to be open um one of which falls in our sub region and so the the information that actually came from the executive director Chad coet was to come to the B board and see if there's any school board members from brard public schools would like to be considered to be on the ballot uh to be basically run for a fouryear seat uh to serve on the sourceful board of directors so I sent that out to all of you uh I had one board member respond to say boy that's of interest to me um I can let that board member speak but that's the
277what we'd like then is to have the I make a motion we put director board in there I was going to formally nominate well you can I'll be the second director Bo yeah all right so um did you abdicate DJ so uh for the record uh we have a motion from director Breen with a second from director dondelinger to nominate director Ward to be on the ballot for the sourcewell board of directors uh for the period of January 1st 24 through 1231 27 any discussion just a question do we get to vote no no okay who votes on that you mean on you mean right now on sourcewell board yeah who's going to put you on the board um public who votes all public entities that are members of the co-op oh different counties and
278cities and schools school districts who are the two board members that are exiting uh the in our region it's Chris uh ker from swanville school district that's our region is sub Region 3 um the other one is out of sub Region 2 Linda art she's from The Walker School District but we fall in sub Region Three which is why that seat's open in our okay any further discussion I'd like to abstain from voting noted director spear is abstaining and director Ward is abstaining as well I think I should I we'll see how it goes maybe we can retro you know see a two two in here all those in favor signify by saying I oppose same sign motion carries thank you good luck director Ward thank you yes so you know um I was going
279to look forward and I realized I've got one year left in this little room we can look for ballots to come out uh soon after it says December 19th of 2023 so we will move John's name forward for the ballot I'll have you all on my door knocking committee soon so perfect all right next up would be the review and approval of revised appendix 902b for the gbi beverages procedure as presented thanks for hanging out with us isn't this fun this should be relatively quick yes let's hope so so in your packets there's a link to a appendix B which is the procedural appendix for our alcoholic beverage sales and service policy at the getzeus Center for the Arts um as we're kind of learning more about um about this whole process I did get
280information from the JC's who have an event coming up in February at the geeba about their process for um the sale and service of alcohol as you know they do several community events around town um they have several members who are what's called tips trained which is a um training around responsible serving of alcoholic beverages they also get uh permits from the Department of Health for um serving you know the ability to serve at a special event and follow those safety rules so um anyway I've Rewritten the policy to have a slight adjustment that would allow an organization to either follow those rules similar to the JC's um or to contact with a caterer as we've talked about before so I'm here today tonight to ask ask you if you would approve of having that
281in our policy so is this coming forward okay so it's it's we're going to we're going to embed this in policy this is not an exception for the JC's correct it would be for any organization that would follow those similar um training and right correct and this is in the procedure the the appendix it's in appendix B that that really gets down to the nitty-gritty of how well approve these and it would still be in my opinion an approval process where we'll ask a lot of questions and get a lot of details before and we put that certification yeah proof of certification so in an Marie's research she learned that this organization in particular had much uh an additional layer of safeguard that was above a caterer so how would we deny that was the
282question that came back so an Marie has learned a lot about TI and food handling and is tips something that we would be able to recommend to other organizations that are like Lakes Lakes Area Music Festival perhaps or is it more precise and there's a lot of organizations that are I wouldn't they're not called state approved they don't technically approve them but they had a list there's also local law enforcement agencies that'll provide that training so there's lots of different options so I wouldn't I'm not spelling out tips in our policy but question director is this more cost effective for some organizations to come right so the JC's uses that as a fundraiser and that you know their fundraising dollars go back to the community whereas if they contract with the cater there would be
283no potential for revenue for their organization from that part of their event so and there is someone here from the JC's tonight if anyone has any questions for him he's sat through a great meeting to attend thank you right he's like this could have been item number one yes John did you have something yes Mr chair um so emry yeah the bottom line is this make it easier or more difficult or no change at all in serving alcohol there they're going to get certified I understand all that right I would say it would open it up for um an organization to potentially make some money doing it versus having to just hire a caterer but it it it still addresses all of our previous concerns for right right with you know a lot of those
284concerns were around making sure that we're reducing liability as much as possible DJ you something wait I'm sorry one one more thing as I read through the whole thing I noticed um hours of operation it says alcohol beverages shall not be sold or served at any time prior to 1 hour prior to audience event what is that five minutes I thought it was what is that how does that impact this it should be event ending is that not correct no we don't want they halftime okay I'm I read it again hours of operation alcohol beverages shall not be sold or served at any time prior to one hour prior to an audience event yes and then DJ to your point alcohol beverages may not be sold or served Beyond 5 minutes prior to the start
285of an audience event correct so we don't want you know the venue opening two hours before a concert with people there getting served alcohol for two hours before the event starts so we've limited that to one hour before an event starts if it's a dinner you know that that's happening ahead of time in the lobby that would be the event that the alcohol is being served at and then we want that service to stop 5 minutes before they would actually go into the auditorium they aren't allowed to bring the beverages into the auditorium so thank you thank you yeah DJ here's my concern I got called today um and so we had the referendum and we built that thing with taxpayer dollars and if you've ever looked at what goes to the schools or the
286levies or the referendums the commercials about four times as much of the same dollar amount of a residential would be and so who are we competing with and so by adding alcohol all of a sudden we're helping the JC's out of what th000 bucks 1,500 two grand maybe but we're upsetting we're going in competition with the MP Center we're going competition with Gran view we're going in competition with madens and craigin because that event if it needs alcohol might end up there and I just don't know that it's our position to go in competition with the people that are paying a lot of that referendum back person that called me said their their property taxes by the time we're done paying it off will be 600,000 and he said he was all for the deal
287like it's a great deal you know because of the music and you know arts and the stuff we were going to do in there and now from what uh I think I'm right about this this JC event is this kickoff for the fishing tournament right correct they have a comedian coming oh really that's cool uh I can go either way but I guess my vote would be just to stick with the cater the JC's can still do it um so I we probably talk to the same person um and I've been engaged with him Higgins yeah uh previously on I got a point no and I agree and here's how I get my head around it if it helps you or it doesn't whatever one remember the restrictions first of all most of these folks
288that are asking to use the gbi are are are like a comedian we have a uniquely designed venue for that event true so that's number one number two we're limited to non not for-profit organizations with headquarters within the city limits of Brainard and that's it so the Lake State Music Festival is a nonprofit based out of Brainard corre cor oh yeah mhm oh yeah correct everybody so there's there's there's a very limited list of candidate organizations that would have enough uh volume in the event to justify it and you know so in my mind that limits that and then uh for me the third piece of that is we're trying to get a return on investment so a little bit of competition is never a bad thing in my book and there's coming a day
289where I think we're going to be in competition whether we like it or not this is just my opining with CLC for some things um right now we're trying to do that in a Cooperative way and as much as possible I think we should do that but it doesn't preclude us from a future where we have we have the facility and we have the ability to put people in that facility you know when we look at Pillager bringing in all of these all of these events into a facility that's you know two-thirds the size of ours and they're filling it and we're not so then what would we do the school would get in the bruise business no k no I'm talking about non-alcohol related events I'm talking about just this is about but I'm
290specific to the alcohol my my two my two contentions are that it's an extremely Li limited pool of people that can use our facility and serve alcohol because of those restrictions deep down from our finance meeting that we had and seeing the rates that we're getting for it as far as I'm concerned we shouldn't even rent it out I think the wear and tear is going to exceed what they get for the rentals but I mean we don't want to build it not to use it but instead of schol School functions maybe some like you get local nonprofits so that's a great reason to use it but you know we're not charging very much compared to what think what it would cost to get certainly a topic for when we revisit that policy and those
291an Marie has that on an annual schedule for us to look at that and look at the rates we charging not just for that but for all district facilities and Mar said they just wanted to kind of get it kicked off isn't that what you told me and kind of get it going so the rates are it is funny because you talk to some of the people not again alcohol aside you have uh certain organizations in town that use the facility and will tell us too expensive and then privately they'll say wow we're just getting a steel look how nice it is that thing's beautiful so I top for another day but this one specifically I had the same concern as you did but that's how I get my head around it is we're not
292you know nobody's going to do a wedding in there no and you know nobody's going to do a big charity bingo I mean the space isn't designed to handle something like that the way that a Grand View could or well I thought they could do big dinners out in the you can do a I mean you can get Maybe 120 people in there right yeah you can't fit a lot of people in Lakes Area Music Festival is the only one that's done a significant one in there I think right we've had a few other yeah dinners Gallas type of things smaller attendance anyway that's how I get my head around it you vote your conscience but that I just wanted to throw that nugget out there for you I don't think it's healthy for us
293to be in that in competition with those people but that's just me it's not the biggest deal in the world it's not like we're out advertising and bringing them in and building the whole tell to go next to it either so I I get it well and I appreciate that it is for Community use and it's for a nonprofit and it's helping them you know meet the needs of the community and the ways that they do so I think it's good when we can support the way we do or the unique venue that it is I just wish it was used more I'd like to see it more bands up here some bands coming huh we have some bands coming it's it's actually used quite a bit yeah it's been quite busy it's busy good
294I would enthusiastically support a motion on this so move and I'll second have a motion from director Ward with a second from director Breen to uh approve the revised appendix 902b get zby beverages procedure as presented Anar any further discussion or questions for Anar hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I oppose same sign motion carries thank you very much all right uh we'll do a quick uh committee meeting update from director Hyman this should be pretty short because uh we just plowed through the substance of most of that yeah we just did that's your update yep good one that's a good one Randy you did a good job on that yeah the only other thing I would say is that a lot of the other policies we talked about were all based
295upon um state law and legislative changes and it was just a we can't do anything about it because we're told that this is what we have to do so but yeah we spent the majority of our time talking about what we talked about tonight so now we've got probably about maybe about uh what six hours of discussion on this policy and it ain't done yet that's just that's my end of my report thank you uh you had additional commentary director or uh director Hyman what he talked about too we did review um kind of the statutory changes they were minimal so the recommendation was committee from the committee was to go to consent yeah so the vast majority of those come through the consent calendar so we're batch approving those where there's not substantive change
296okay yeah I maybe should have made a comment about that when we approved the consent calendar but I didn't but uh next up will be informational uh director spear with a B bpsf report I have been waiting all night a lot of going around be careful the night's not over so Jessica gangle and I I think she'd be fine with me sharing this but she sent out an email that said Best Day Ever and it was to announce an estate donation for almost 400,000 holy cow toer Public Schools Foundation you've been sitting on that for 42 hours yeah it was nearly $400,000 by the time all the dispersements are made W yeah and largest donation second largest donation and so it was from the the Anna W Olen um estate and so a portion of
297it will be designated to be endowed to use for scholarships and there's another portion of it that's still um out there being dreamt about nightly by the brain Republic schools Foundation group so just fantastic and the the generosity of this community and just the way people show up and this this brainer Public Schools Foundation group is so committed to making sure it gets spent on the kids in education awesome awesome yeah you very cool I've got a few other things um December 4th put it on your calendar if you haven't signed up for Bingo um spots are going fast and February 3rd put it on your calendar big event at Grand View and uh out of this world a night of Stellar giving yes so I'll get your get your or whatever ready to oh
298that's the big I was able to do the farm fresh thing last year I don't know about the astronaut thing I come I'm gonna come dressed as Joshua [Laughter] dos that actually would be a pretty good one really all right anything else does it all right we'll move on to equity task force Michelle I'll be quick to the task force will be dividing into groups to look at how we can hear from different partners in our community um so all people on the committee have signed up for VAR working with various groups from students famili staff and the community at large thank you very much uh next up uh uh the ad hoc uh fill in for business services for for uh yeah just imag if you will Marcy Lord Marcy Lord reincarnated in spirit
299um she unfortunately is ill and I'm afraid if we don't get Janet out of here yeah I don't think I'm going to see Janet the rest of the week she's fading fast um she attached two documents in your board packet the financial report and the enrollment report in her financial report of note uh construction funds are tracking higher compared to Prior year um she's stating this is varied in previous months so she's going to be uh reviewing that uh at the upcoming budget revision and she's going to be asking for an updated draw schedule uh with the revisions from IC to bring Clarity to that and then the summary of the enrollment report uh we are down eight students from the beginning of the school year in kind in grades kindgren through 12 um but
300however we're up in enrollment um and up from predicted budget from the revision in October 1st so okay thank you how's that want change hats great any questions on the before we move to superintendence report good all right so you got to do that I switch um it was a fun night I agree I was very appreciative of John Ericson so the Betty Alderman I knew Betty Alderman dearly from just going to church with her and singing in church choir and just she was Community everywhere so wonderful gift the foundation super exciting um and then I just that it's just constant there are so many gifts and that's what uh I said director Wards stole my thunder but just sorry that's that's right wanted to note that every month there is just uh constant giving
301and constant support for our schools um we don't acknowledge them publicly but we do make sure we individually um send them notes as well uh the other thing is we've had just volunteers all over the place uh last week we had veterans programs and I'm so grateful to our area Legions that participated that and the volunteers that came forward um if you got to attend any of them they were very moving so very grateful for our community for that um and then just I'm very appre if you look around this room for those that have stayed for the four hours of this event um this reminds me that was the intent is the reason we do what we do and all the processes this is the heavy lifting of process is because of students and
302it's our staff so when you look at these things events students it's our staff that are making incredible things happen every single day um and it's reflected in kind of the faces that are surrounding us right now too just very grateful for that that's all I have unless you want me to read my next binder birth of material that's okay I think we can save that for a breakfast meeting Perfect all right we'll move on to director updates starting with director Breen I have no updates thank you director Hyman I wasn't going to say anything but this popped into me this afternoon um I'm kind of going back 40 8 years when I was at Mano State University it happened to be in the springtime and a bunch of students shut down our University along
303with a lot of universities throughout the United States they were protesting our Invasion into Cambodia what does that have to do with anything I'm I'm concerned again we've got a lot of students that are out there protesting what's going on in the Middle East and I truly believe they don't know really what they're protesting just like they didn't know 48 years ago what they were protesting and it bothers me from because we're in the education business and some of the people people leading these protests are professors you would think that they would want to have them in class and educating them about why and what's going on um I just I feel bad because you know we're all involved in the education business yeah we're at the high school level but you know that we've
304got the universities and that's where our kids are going to be going and I just I feel bad I just I feel sad because um they just they don't know so they don't even know what they're protesting and they've had people ask them what what why are you protesting well I don't I don't know you know um who's a moss I don't know I have no idea who they are I mean so I just wanted to throw that out uh I think we're doing a pretty darn good job here in Brainard and uh but for whatever reason I wasn't going to say nothing tonight and then I decided no I want to bring that up so that's it thank you director donlinger I'm I guess I I'm with my Christmas wishes Michelle I I'm hoping
305that we can get some stuff worked out on this book thing because I uh I I wouldn't want to say it's a waste of time I think it's very important but I'd like to get moving on to get to the bigger things when we got 54% attendance in our school uh these teachers administrators parents apparently need help I I don't know um that that's a that's a tragedy on a brighter note it's Thanksgiving you know it's a a time to give thanks and I think that we should be reminding our kids grandkids nieces and nephews how lucky they are to live in a country where if you want to go out and protest to MOS or Israel you can do it without having to worry about getting thrown off a building or lit on fire
306so there we go I I'm just hoping that our kids coming out of Briner school districts understand the freedoms that they have and appreciate them because this guy is the limit in this country work hard you can do a lot of things so there you go thank you get the timer ready director Ward there is no timer promises were made I've been waiting all night um I I am I have been waiting all night and uh I just want to say uh some congratulations and thanks to start with and that number one the Vets program somebody just brought up the Vets program super I think you stole my thunder um so there go so I attended three of them and to uh director dinger's point about our kids I attended three different uh uh veteran
307service programs and they were all unbelievably remarkable and touching but the most touching was this and was at the high school and uh the keynote gave a great speech but the thing he did the that was wonderful he invited our student body to come down at the end of the program and thank the One World War II vet that was there for his service and I want to tell you those kids came out of that st came out of their bleachers respectfully quietly orderly and they waited in line they they formed a line a single line that wrapped around and they waited and waited and waited when they got to all the Vets especially the World War II one they shook their hand his hand said thank you but they did it for every vet
308there it was remarkable and uh but the other ones were good as as touching and remarkable as well you mentioned Thanksgiving that stole my thunder too DG on you guys um but I wanted to I you got Thunder left joh I don't know how much voice I have poor Janet probably anyhow um it is a day to give thanks and there's not a better way to give thanks I wish and thank you for all staying here with us um I wish the whole uh room would have heard this there's a thing going on Thursday morning Thanksgiving morning at the Armory uh called The Turkey Trot and the Turkey Trot is a great way to start your day out with your family it gives thanks for children the Turkey Trot is all about uh proceeds going
309to the Shriner Hospital uh in Minneapolis for children that need orthop Orthopedic care for free um that is real special and personal to me as I was in the Shriners Hospital for six my first 16 years of my life in and out my longest stay there was 7 months straight in my ninth grade year straight without coming home cost to my parents zero zero wow so if you're think looking for a way to give thanks Thursday morning of Thanksgiving it's called The Turkey Trot go online go brainer turkey tr.com register and I'll see you there um Miss H Joi is she still here yeah she is um I just want to call you out for um Handle With Care I think Handle With Care Handle With Care for those that don't know is a communication
310between social services and our school district for families and kids that are going through tough times and Social Services know that most of the time before we do and the Handle With Care is it it communicates with all of us this child this young boy young girl young man what young woman needs some attention and please Handle With Care thank you for doing that um and then I had a long dissertation I was going to do tonight and I'm going to brief it up as much as I can uh um we have a remarkable system in Brainard we have an awesome staff we have remarkable students we have a superb leadership we have beautiful facilities quality academics um we're respected and admired amongst the state um we have top shelf co- cricker extra cricker activities
311and a community support we're really blessed here as board members the six of us hear lots from community members staff parents Etc and when we hear the comments or when we get contacted a lot of times it's about problems concerns um fires and build not literally fires but fire what we call fires in buildings uh we hear about staff um and students not being safe we have talked about that over and over and over again and the morale not being uh um wonderful and it was great to see so many Educators here tonight thank you for hanging with us and for doing what you do um so I you know as as board members we hear all of this and we try to address all of it and we do a lot of it through
312our Retreats but to me and and to me as a former special education teacher um but but just an educator period um as I walk through buildings have I've been through the buildings I'm going to be at and I think R Randy you are tomorrow too and maybe others you know there's a little thing there's a thing at l l about uh books and breakfast or something I'm going for the breakfast he's going for the books but uh no it's a it's a great program where we can go in and read the kids right away in the morning and um so we're just blessed with so many great things but we have also some fighting s and um the administration Works their tail off the staff Works their tail off kids themselves work their tails
313off and families and parents to help calm the fires and we have the board we as the board have been trying to do that as well and we do a lot of it during our Retreat time excuse me and um I would like to throw out the fact that I as a board as a as a as a board member I would like the six of us to maybe do some um visits School visits and listen I'm not interested in hearing it complaining anymore or whining or what some people call biing whatever I'm interested in what how can we help our kids how can we help our kids and our staff cuz it seems to be getting somebody that referenced this ear it seems to be getting more intense and and and more um uh
314well let me just say intense and so and we need the professionals are doing their job they've been matter of fact Dr Han and the administrative team and and administrative team and staff since we adopted the budget since this board adopted the budget which didn't include what I'm just going to tell you we've hired 19 additional staff am I wrong no that's correct 19 addition staff to try to help with the fires and we're going to probably have to do some more we've got some tough decisions to make in this District um both with literacy and Levy and learning environment and other things and I would really love to hear from it's great so many people here tonight and it's great that we always have open mic and and and things as such but I
315would really like to hear in the buildings I really would like and I I told Dr Han and director Breen that um I I would like to see uh School Board public meetings open public meetings um you know under n Hoff committee maybe or whatever um to do that uh to hear to try to come up with strategies and other input from other people um so we can talk about this at The Retreat as as we talked about it today director donlinger um but our kids and we also know this too parents parents have to be struggling especially for Co but we can't keep using CO as an excuse in my opinion it is the reality but what are we going to do about it what are we going to do about our kids that
316are behind our kids that are showing problems our kids that you know would rather act out than be thought of I can't read or I'm not as smart as Susie or um Sarah or Michelle or or whomever or John or or whoever so we've got to act and parents we need you I heard tonight now we're going to we're the volunteering is coming in heavy um I think it goes to an Marie but we need parents we need we want and need parents in our buildings maybe it's just to talk to a kid Maybe it's just to sit on with a kid one or two hours a week uh representative doning two week or last uh board meeting I think actually said please get your kids here we can't help if they're not here chairman
317boil as I heard that tonight too and we need you parents we really really do and I know that you are appreciated respected admired as you participate with us help us help your kids help us help your kids cuz we we ISD 181 can't do it alone without you and you've been great in this community as was just pointed out but we've got to get some of these fires taken care of Cu our staff and our kids are counting on us are counting on us and everybody has been doing their job it's nobody's fault it's nobody's blame it's nothing what are we going to do about it so I I I'd like to make a motion um to consider having no I'd like to make a motion to have uh School Board I don't visits
318building meetings or whatever that are um conducive with staff um to talk about help us help your kids um and if if we want to set up an ad hoc committee to do that um you know I would be more than happy to to try to direct that um if to take it off your plate but chair if you wanted to do that that's okay too so I'd like to make that motion at this time sorry I took so long folks because I know you're tired but I think it's really important well can we just talk about at the retreat because we make a motion this late in the game and have we going to have discussion and all that crap I mean yes um I mean I'm inclined to entertain some more discussion I
319mean the retreat agenda is getting pretty chock full too right f um I hate to prolong this any more than necessary but at minimum I'd like to walk out of here with a plan and then we can we can polish it at the retreat so you can't we can't meet as a board with the schools if you disclose it publicly you can yeah you could do well open meeting law collectively I can't keep up you know I I'm going be we can avoid that by going in group or something I can't and you're going to go to Florida for the whole winner so and you're going under the knife and you there's some stuff going on so I just don't see y there's a thing called board fatigue you know you have to get committees
320I get it I'm more than willing to to discuss it at at the retreat as well I do want folk I want the board members to know that I have presented a plan to Dr Han and to and actually to all board members I sent all of you folks a suggested ideas I've got it with me I mean it's good stuff huh I agree with well we all have it but we couldn't discuss it it's illegal to discuss it until we're in this room right or in The Retreat room right right so I I concur I think you did some fabulous leg work um no question you know at the end of it all I mean you articulated a lot of the passions that all six of us have abated and said before I think
321it's just really finding a way to do it where you know we don't duplicate work other y entities are trying to do or that we somehow dovetail that as best we can and not create extra work for the people we're trying to alleviate work for and right so I think it's it's just being um so I don't I don't disagree with anything that you espoused this evening I think it's all you know I mean you're you know yeah I appreciate that yeah no I think I think it's fantastic it's just to me devil I get what all of us are saying every every board member we have difference of opinions that's great we have different we're diverse that's great in my opinion but we have in the year that we've been elected I think we've
322done some um remarkable listening and things as well as a collective board and I know what we're going to do more going forward excuse me um and I'm a lot more in common than we think absolutely for sure so Mr chair I'm there was no second but I'm I'm fine with um I wanted to kind of push it because uh I I'm I've got some things coming up that are going to um put me on for a while but but I I heard all my members say you know this is something that we need to talk about so um let me ask you this then if I'm if if we take a look if I collaborate with you on the retreat agenda and we make sure that there's ample time to discuss some of this
323at The Retreat would would that be acceptable to you yes how about the rest of you I think it's it merits being a significant bullet point I mean we wanted to get deeper into strategic planning but um you'll have the draft in your hand a good week beforehand you've already approved the goals and priorities this is just putting the bow on it I guess um and getting approvable to present the full plan we have that scheduled for December 19th with the public I believe I think we're we're in a we're in a circular set of circumstances where we have these identified priorities right at a very macro level they are literacy fiscal situation fiscal situ y right those are two of the big ones student Safety and Security and getting behind the staff and making
324sure they have what they need to the extent possible there's nobody at this table that's going to go n I'm on board with three of those right everybody here is passionate about those four we' talked it to death at the Retreats and then over it you've got the Strategic plan sitting here and what I submit that's what I was going to talk about in my free like where is it it was a one Bas document we can knock the thing out in an hour that was the plan for the retreat but what I submit is all all of those items are connected get that done they're all interwoven so we'll we'll try to we'll try to collaborate I'll I'll Circle back with each one of you individually and try to explain where we're trying to
325go with the agenda for that board retreat I can't remember how many hours are we scheduled for is that another 11 to4 or 11 to 5 thing no it starts at 4:00 which is something we want on the agenda too we're done with that yeah it's in the afternoon let's do these things on Saturday mornings boom knock it out out of there by 11: 11:30 so at any rate What's the total time commitment four hours 4 all right we'll figure out how to we'll figure out how to just to to tackle these three things but we definitely the other thing we really wanted was the equity task force to talk about their findings so that all six of us with 12 years can hear I think we all have two don't we yeah which also
326really ties into the the safety and the a lot a lot of yeah that's what I mean I think there's there's there's there's so they're going to come present that be the only one we're going to have on uh that's going to be a presentation the rest will be our typical format of all discussion but we need that as a framework I think to have John's discussion what's going to be presented the equity task force is going to present some of the information cuz done specifically over the last 14 months just a ton of work on this and it t as I understand it it ties into exactly what what I'm talking about tonight I think so I think most of it does I would agree with that well then is Paula gonna be there
327from partner Ed she is going to be there to finalize basically what we're going to do is a strategic plan we probably do the Strategic plan first and put ourselves on a sh those guys can go home don't you think or right but what I what I don't want to do is what we do which is blow three and a half of the 4 hours on one topic because that's how we roll sometimes y you're right and so we're going to have to figure out a way to manage that a little bit I guess if we had a good chair we could do that but you have me sometimes things just have to take their course you know yep so I think that's that's a good plan of action I'm I'm very I'm very and
328John you know thank you yeah thank you thank you for no thank you for all the work it took somebody to go in with open heart and open ears to to collect the information you collected and that's important information from a level of perspective we I don't know that the previous school board's ever done oh thank you um John I I'm still coming to buildings too by the way I just want you to all know that just to say hi and visit him like like my other board members have John I'd also like to invite you to the equity task to be on the equity task force committee we meet tomorrow at 3:15 at the high school we are permitted to have three board members on the committee and historically we did when director spear
329director black lance and myself were on there um you can do that we can we're a school board I would entertain a motion to add you to the equity task force you need a motion yes okay I would like to make a motion that we include John or we ask director Ward to join the equity task force committee I'll second okay we have a motion from director Breen with a second from director spear to add director Ward to the equity task force any discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I I oose same sign motion carries no I'm I'm I think it'll give you insight and I think because everybody was so new based on the election we we held off and we're a year into this now I think having an additional
330eyes in that in that in that room or when is the next one uh 3:15 tomorrow at the high school 3:15 tomorrow okay so you get a I don't be diling around looking for free pancakes or something you got to get over the high school you're going to go to L at 7:30 as I am as Randy she'll text you yeah all right thank you thank you director spear I have nothing I'll pass so that leaves just me with a couple of uh closing thoughts and one of one of those would be again I think it's you know as I think about Thanksgiving what's coming up um it's It's always important that we recognize the the the work that all of the staff do um you know to keep over 6,000 kids moving around and
331doing what they're supposed to be doing to the extent that's possible given the resource constraints and uh I think what I'm trying to do in my last year coming up here shortly I'll I'll round third base and getting ready to slide into home which will be somewhere in North Carolina most likely maybe is that I don't I still don't think that the community has a grasp of how this district has kept a float for as long as it has from a fiscal perspective I just think there's a sense of unreality that there's somehow this magic $2 million that we've squirel away for some reason that we're just not we're just not managing uh DJ you've been through the budget looking for the low hanging fruit and um what I would say is for 20 plus
332years this district has cut cut cut cut cut it's all in black and white if you want to go look for it it's all out there all right there's a reason that happened it's not through mismanagement it's not through bad school boards and it's certainly not because we don't have the greatest staff in the state of Minnesota and the United States of America we do I wouldn't have moved my kid back here four years ago if I didn't believe that right but the realities are the realities we do not have an operating Levy we do not have the benefits of the tax base that we used to gained from in the 90s when we were able to collect all those tax revenues from Gull Lake and the surrounding areas that's when The Cutting started and
333the culture of cutting has persisted through all of that we've got to figure out the time is now that we'll have to figure that out or begin to figure that out and the boards that come after us are going to have to deal with that and I just think it's important as we start to talk at the Retreats about the these solutions that we recognize we are out of fingers and toes to cut off we're down to eyes arms legs that is where we are now you can disagree with me but I'll sit down with you and we'll go with John and DJ through the finance committee meetings and and I will tell you right now that's just the lay of the land and I I I'm sorry if you don't agree with me but
334I've been through it for four years I was two years on the finance committee myself doing the same thing you did I was like surely there's some weird spot that we can save yeah sure we can cut lacrosse we can go to six day uh six period days at the high school there's some measures that we can take but that's those are arms and legs so I just wanted to ring that Bell for those that are still awake and watching or stream this later that you know the work that we do as a board we may not agree on how we get there but I think we all agree that that's the issue um and knowing that we have to face that over the next year that I'm still sitting with you I am thankful
335that I have the five of you and Dr Han to St shoulder Tosh shoulder with to try to figure some of this stuff out every one of you have huge Hearts um and you're representative of a hugee hearted Community um which are represented through quiet gifts quiet support not necessarily the emails you get every day right that isn't that isn't necessarily reflective of what's going on in our community as a whole um and then all the way up to our staff and our parents that are trying most of them trying to do the best that they can do so every action that we do from this point forward to John's Point earlier is we need to be figuring out better ways that we can support cooperation between those different layers that's consensus building which is
336what I ran for school board on in the first place and I get disappointed from time to time and it's not fair to pick on people I get disappointed because sometimes we get distracted from that work because the flavor of the month comes along and gets us to spend four hours on something that really doesn't have anything to do with literacy or student safety or fiscal issues or enrollment yeah and um you know that's that's where I get frustrated and I've got to check that from time to time because I get overly frustrated by it and it's not fair because people have pet issues that they're really concerned about and they they they they deserve to have those aired and heard and um we deserve to we are in it's incumbit upon us to to
337address those in a transparent fashion since I've been on this board I've seen nothing but a drift towards transparency and the irony is the cost that comes with that is we've opened ourselves up to criticism at a level that no other board has ever opened themselves up to really 100% huh 100% ask around have lunch with a former board member I can promise you it's even different now and I came on during masks and coid and all of that stuff really yeah that's crazy so anyway thanks for your service if you're a teacher if you're a janitor if you were a cook if you're a bus driver collaborative worker a Pera and anybody else that left administrators everybody I mean if one piece of that machine breaks the whole machine breaks and as a former
338parent of a kid in the school district I'm not I'm still as parent as a parent of a former student in the district to get my grammar correct before an English teacher hits me thank you for everything that you did for my kids and thank you for what you're going to do for every kid that comes through here you all matter and thank you I'm done let's get out of here and have a good night all right um the only change to number 13 under future meetings is the Personnel committee meeting is canceled otherwise you can read those for yourself um can I add one thing of course Michelle the APAC committee is meeting Wednesday November 15th at 5:30 I believe 5:30 to 7:30 in this building okay I'll have to add that that's a
339parent advisory yeah parent advisory that's great okay all right so we have a motion from director dondlinger to adjourn second director Hyman a second do we have any further discussion coming hearing none those in favor of adjournment signify by saying I I say