001indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right we will move along to the approval of the agenda as amended the agenda for tonight is amended under presentations the report of the reevaluation committee uh I'll explain further when we get there but that has uh been removed from the agenda for tonight um so uh would entertain a motion to approve motion second we have a motion from director Dinger with a second from director Ward any discussion hearing none all in favor signify by saying I please I oppose same sign motion carries all right we'll bring up recognitions if principal Rusk would come forward thank you good evening everyone I first want to start off by thanking all of you for attending the many events that we had for our homecoming celebration week this past year
002recognitions from Brandon High School include um a big congratulations to our Warrior girls tennis team for being um the Central Lakes Conference champions they also competed this past weekend and did really well and will be continuing on in postseason play next week congratulations to the following who were selected for the bra Brainard High School homecoming Court Annie Pierce Nate herkenhoff Alec Alice bowsley George Campbell Lexi stru Dylan snisky Brandon Stark Savannah Johnson and Shan englestad and a congratulations to Eli Holz and Molly pole camp for being selected as our 2023 homecoming king and queen those are the updates from brard high school great thank you principal Rusk uh Dr stach I see you're in the house would you want to come up and read this next one for us followed by principal rasy was a
003dab embarrassed about I'm in my workout close but we had a family emergency so my husband had to go One Direction and I was scrambling at the last minute so I apologize for I didn't have time to change back into my school attire so at Baxter we are congratulating our student council members and recognizing them tonight and named to our student council from the fourth grade this year for the first half of the school year Nora Khan Lincoln juwel Luna Mady Lucy Nelson leak erson Olivia quirin Adeline Ryan and Ellison Shepard and they've been very active we meet once a week and they've had a quite a bit going on already this school year thank you thank you thanks hi there I want to honor our student council members for this year they were voted
004on by by their classmates and our student council are Cassidy Cassidy Sparrow Noah mcgibbon Austin Logan Canon Stewart Juliet clabo Ellen lson Kennedy kosla Ellie Marsh Lexi ozinsky adley Ward Kinley Fortis and silver Estrada so congratulations to them thank you thank you principal all right we'll move on to public input uh do my usual read here before we launch into public input a member of the public can address the board during this time 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 with that noted our first Speaker this evening will be
005Mr Doug Karr thank you um talking about the Mental Health crisis we have a crisis going on with our children um during the 1970s 60s 70s 80s and 90s we had uh little girls trying to look like Barbie and that was wrong because you know Barbie just doesn't fit the mold of what anybody can achieve uh that created a a mental health thing with little girls where they became anorexic they tried to look fit that mold uh what I see happening is that we're creating a mental health crisis over these books that are in the schools um the the teaching of am I a girl or am I a boy uh confusion at its finest allowing these pornographic books for children to access creates a mental health issue um to say we are concerned about
006mental health and not dealing with these books in our schools is not only against the law but it's disingenuous and to me it's almost creating problem so you can fix it uh we shouldn't be creating problems we should be fixing the problems and removing these books thank you thank you Doug our next speaker daddy Smith please good evening my name is Dy Smith I am here tonight to provide an observation and a description of what I witnessed during the re-evaluation of resources committee meeting on September 18th I attended my first ever re-evaluation a resource public meeting to support my friend in her book complaint as I sat there my attention was drawn to this one particular person on the committee who is obviously in control I asked my friend who he was she said he
007wasn't the chair he a director of teaching and learning it became clear to me this man intended to dominate the outcome of this meeting when it was time to vote the chair would give instructions only to have this man re explain them to everyone at the meeting making sure all 11 people on the committee understood how he is going to vote and what he expected of them while observing it appeared the man was was exercising unrestrained Power by repeatedly interrupting or talking over the chair twice I suggested to my friend that we leave because there was no meaningful conversation going on and in my opinion this meeting all outcome was predetermined by the director of teaching and learning it was surprising how little input was given by the majority of the committee members their par
008particip a was very limited I have read the policy 606 and it's shocking that the committee allowed so much inappropriate behavior to go on in the meeting that had nothing to do with the scope of their responsibilities and should not have been allowed thank you uh Karen kudon please yeah it's okay um my name is Karen kuds and I am a citizen of the of Baxter and a grandmother of children in the district and I actually wasn't going to speak but this afternoon as I was thinking of what was happening and I heard that the the group of people who were talking about the books and whether or not they should be left in the library decided that X-rated books is that are recommended I read the recommendation I read the review um would be
009left in the library that were to be read only by 18 and above adult only so that's a start but what I what I did this afternoon startled me because I was I was listening to the testimonies of Holocaust Survivors I have a good friend who is a holocaust Survivor and I've spent a fair amount of time with her she's explained to me a lot of the things that have happened she died recently she died in a year ago in October but um as we talked about what had been happening and then I watched the testimonies these are the things that happened when they were pulled out of their homes because they did not agree with the leadership they were taken away from their parents they were put in government housing that was obviously way
010too small they were put in prison camps and if the parents didn't agree they were either killed or they were just removed from their children um once they were in the prison camp they were given toxic injections to see what they would do to them to see what would happen to their skin as it turned white as some of them had diseases that their legs would fill with pus and and um gross bacteria um where um they some of the boys were their testicles and their penises were cut with glass in order to see what would happen and the girls were also castrated not castrated but they were um whatever you call it anyway they they were cut and their private body parts were cut and then they would milk things out of these people
011they would it was horrible but in addition to that um I I'm still reeling a bit from what happened but if parents didn't comply okay I I already had that um they would the mothers would also be experimented with they were they had they provided sex changes and um they decided to do experiments with sex changing um the people youen okay I'm just saying it could happen again couldn't it and our final speaker for this evening Shirley joerger please I came here tonight to talk um in regard to an agenda item that you say has now been pulled and I'm wondering if I can ask you a question has it been pulled permanently or only for tonight we're actually not allowed to answer questions during public input I'll explain a little bit more when we
012get to that part of the agenda well I will go ahead then if it's been pulled permanently this might be redundant but I will go ahead anyway so good evening Mr chairman and other board members I'm here tonight to address one item on the agenda the process one must go through to bring to light one single book sitting in a school library has proven to be not only tedious and daunting but also seemingly useless I am the complainant who brought the book Empire of storms by Sarah J moss to the school's attention pointing out the sexually exp explicit language it contains it was impressed upon me that I must follow policy 606 to the letter if I wanted to be heard so I proceeded to do so and shock upon shock I am the only
013one apparently who bothered to do that you have before you on the agenda which is no longer there an item generated from from that committee a recommendation not about the book in question but about a group of other books a preemptive strike you might call it but I call it a breach of policy policy 606 States the following in part two called re-evaluation of resources procedures in section two under procedures item e it says a request for re-evaluation of a res ource form shall be completed for each resource for which there is a concern I understand that to mean one book per form meaning one book per committee under item I the committee for re-evaluation of resources shall within 30 days number three follow all the procedures outlined in section 4 which is the committee
014responsib posibilities under section three committee for re-evaluation of resources Item B guidelines uh are called guidelines and item eight it says at the second meeting the committee shall and this is the complete list of their duties number one hear testimony number two examine the questioned resource ETC number three weigh the values ETC number four ADH to the principles of the freedom to learn and to read ETC number five determine professional acceptance Etc six discuss the resource Etc seven make a decision by public vote and eight prepare three minutes thank you recommendation should not even be there ever all right we shall move move along to the approval of the minutes from our meeting on September 11th I'll make a motion to approve a second okay we have a motion from director spear with a second
015from director Breen to approve the board meeting minutes from September 11th any further discussion hearing none all those in favor say I please I oppose same sign motion carries uh up next is the consent calendar I'll make a motion to approve the consent calendar thank you I'll second so we have a motion from director spear with a second from director Breen to approve the uh consent calendar as presented discussion is it consent calendar the staff changes donation trades home request for bids he a listing contract all everything that's listed below that is that what's on it yes all the way up to item number eight I'm good with it director Hyman did you have a question um a comment is all um there's a name on there that we are quite familiar with and that
016is uh Miss Janet horn she has been in the school district for how many years Janet 17 and I'm sure we'll we'll we'll talk about this more in other meetings but I I saw that on these staff change and leaves and uh I just want to say thank you for all that you've done for all these years uh Etc so uh thank youcome also on the revised msba policies 533 through 907 uh I don't know if everybody read through them there wasn't a lot of change to these there were just a few language changes in each one of these related to statutory requirements from legislation so there was no functional change to the operation of any of those policies I guess I do have a question sure um probably for Tim on 721 so is
017this just basically telling us how you have to you know it says that on page two it says that you could spend $10,000 as a micro purchase anything under 250 is a small purchase and a small purchase should have three different kinds of bidding on it so is this just rules on federal grants or all grants of how the school spends the money I mean there's stuff about employees and all this is this is a pretty confusing policy it's 13 Pages Here Comes Mar I'm going to defer to yeah what's the deal Mar what is this stuff I just know the limit about you nail on the head it's basically for federal money there's rules for federal grants exactly there's rules for other ones but they're different yes of course want to just have one
018set of rules no yeah this is government we got have a lot of rules that's whether we're bidding or an expenditure of 10,000 under 10,000 you don't need bids y above 10,000 you do so those are procuring requirements this is federal revenue that we would be having to follow guidelines on okay okay and purchases okay thanks thank you Mr chair director Ward under the um donations and grants um there have been some significant donations this past month um and I think every time that happens in my opinion needs to be recognized uh I know that we send letters out and things as such but uh we've got some nice donations from MJ's neighborhood ice cream um and from um brard Eagles and then a lot of folks um and others we're appreciative of all donations
019of course to the school district um but there's been a lot of folks that have um provided school supplies for the start of our children in our schools as well so I just wanted to recognize all of those efforts thank you that's excellent director Ward thank you any other discussion or commentary okay hearing none then all those in favor of approval of the consent calendar as presented signifi by saying I please I oppose same sign motion carries moving along to new business first up is director Mera with the district site continuous Improvement plans Facility by facility okay I'm going to work off two screens at the moment just to make sure I don't lose any of my notes as I go through my printed copies is still over at the LEC so once we're all
020moved over here we'll be in good shape okay so what I have for you tonight under this first item is to two pieces first is a 2223 student achievement report um in responding to questions from the board both at uh meeting committee meetings and at Retreats I've tried to make this as clear simple and concise as humanly possible um it was a a point of emphasis in feedback that I received after last year's one so we'll we'll take a the stab at being as clear and short as possible so the very first thing we want to take a look at is just the overview by level elementary middle and high school what you have here are the student achievement reports by content area from the Minnesota comprehensive assessments for each level on the left and
021on the right is what the state comparative score is we are still consistently outperforming the state we are also still consistently not performing at a level that we wish to perform there are some very significant celebrations for us to take a look at this year Nisa Elementary had a 7% proficiency Improvement in fourth grade math compared to Performance of its cohort in third grade so as those third graders move to fourth grade their performance improved that's not a common pattern of assessment it is normal for starting in third grade all the way through the high school to be some form of drop off in performance why because an awful lot of Life can occur between third grade and 10th grade or 11th grade depending on the assessment it's our our task to start as high
022as possible and keep that as flat as possible when possible to move that upwards and in this case niswa successfully did it in math in the third to fourth grade area they were not alone Riverside Elementary saw a 133% proficiency Improvement in fourth grade math and a 10% proficiency Improvement in fourth grade reading compared to the cohort scores in third grade that's an impressive change over time the high school also exceeded its AC comp goal by reading by 6% Forest View had 11% proficiency Improvement in fifth grade reading compared to the entire cohort across the six elementaries in fourth grade foru had a 16% proficiency Improvement in eighth grade math compared to the performance of the cohort in seventh grade normally goals are set anywhere from the 3 to 5% range we have some indicators
023not uniform throughout the district obviously of high single digits and double digit improvements what we're what we think we're starting to see here is our attempts to respond to coming out of the pandemic are starting to take root it's not consistent over the entire District yet which you'll see in the comparative scores by each site but progress is being made there are things to celebrate graduation rates okay graduation rates are a lag indicator from the state of Minnesota so I do not have I will not have the the 2223 spring data till next year okay so what we'll have is the last spring the 2022 spring data the Improvement for the senior high school from 93% to 96% puts them in full compliance with state law and expectations for graduation rates Lincoln education center has
024seen an improvement as well the learning Learning Center brainer Learning Center had a slight decline but for these two sites their populations are small enough that one student can move a 5 7 12% change so if isd181 Learning Center is at a 545 it's probably the same number of students who are proficient as the previous or graduating as the previous year the other piece to remember and this is extremely important please for Lincoln education Center and isd181 they're being evaluated on the same 4year graduation rate that the high school is being evaluated on if we were to provide the data on the six-year and seven-year graduation rates it would be comparable in the high 90s these are very successful programs the fact that they're graduating anywhere from a third to half of their students on
025time when normally one of the criteria for going to the Learning Center is your behind in credits is a significant success and those principles deserve the recognition for their teams this is the annual data portrait or the demographic portrait of the district I know it's it's a very very busy busy document but it lays out very clearly who we are the conclusion I want to share with you is that for all students of color we had a 1% increase from previous year it doesn't sound like much but these sorts of increases compound over time 10 years ago the number of minority students in the district was less than 3% aggregate now it is over 11% we are a changing District we are becoming more diverse and that is an opportunity for us to embrace the
026diversity and to see the new flavors that are coming into the district so we are changing and we're responding to those changes and we look forward to those challenges as we move forward special education still is a challenge for us in terms of identification 28% of the students in our district are in special ed before their first day of kindergarten that number remains relatively stable throughout the entire 12 years of the 13 years of their education but it's not the same 28% underneath that stable idea is an immense amount of churn that 28% coming into kindergarten is very heavily influenced by speech language issues a lot of it we believe is brought on by lack of Early Childhood programming and experiences due to the pandemic our speech language pathology programs address that really well we
027do see students exiting special edit that time but we also see a corresponding increase of other students at an older age falling into special education because core instruction for some students is not successful to the level we wish it is and that's what's reflected in the MCA scores you saw on the first slide and that's where we have to make our biggest growth this is a slide that reflects the breakdown of the five most common disabilities for our special ed students 88% of our students fall in either sld SLI ASD EBD o I'll I'll talk through those the the alphabets soup in a moment um what we have is specific learning disabilities speech language impaired autism spectrum disorder emotional behavior disorders and other health disabilities that's 88% of our placements in special ed that other
02812% is spread out by the rest of the ones identified on the key on the right math proficiency by site in red you see the state comparative for that level it's corresponding to the what I showed you in the first slide but this breaks that first slide out to the specific schools what we see is our schools with the highest percentage of poverty also have the highest percentage of special ed and have the highest percentage of opportunities for growth and that's again where we need to focus our our our efforts there when we all come together at Forest View we still out perform the state not by as much as we used to and not by as much as we wish to and the same can be said for the high school though currently again
029you see a pattern of growth in math where moving from Forest View to the high school we're seeing student achievement improve so there are conscious things occurring there that are bearing some fruit this slide you've seen before in the past it shows the achievement gaps for students in economic hardship and students in special education and what it shows is that our attempts here have not borne the fruit that we wish they would have we're still struggling to close the achievement gaps for students in poverty and students in special ed even when proficiency rates go up they go up correspondingly not closing a gap similar patterns play out in Reading across the district though a bit more competitive against the state by more sites we still have the same uneven situations where the schools with the
030highest rates of poverty have the greatest Challenge and then as we move to the middle school and to the high school we see ourselves still outperforming the state not to the level we wish but we are seeing growth between Forest View and the high school in special education in reading this is our largest achievement Gap and this is the most pernicious one we have 64% of our students who are not in special education are reading at l grade level but 23% of our students in special education are reading at grade level creating a significant 41% achievement Gap this we have to address and we'll talk about our plan to do that towards the end of this presentation in science since science is tested only three times fifth grade eighth grade and at the high school
031uh Forest View has two tests in it the elementaries have no test so that's why there's no Elementary score we significantly outperformed the state at the middle school level and those scores only continue to rise at the secondary level one of the key pieces structurally in the district that supports this is because fifth grade is at Forest View unlike at elementary schools there is a dedicated period 50 minutes a day every day for science this gives our science teachers the ability to loop back through third and fourth grade standards and still fulfill all of the fifth grade standards it generates an immense amount of success for us it means the instruction we do is effective and the structure that's in place to support that is helping MCA science proficiency by group here we see smaller
032achievement gaps and we here we also see some success in closing student achievement gaps as our groups work through their science curriculum so what do we do next this is what I'm asking for your support in approving these are the three components of the continuous Improvement priorities for the district for this coming year and probably will be uh extended over the next couple of years it starts with the implementation of the district multi-tiered system of support that's about developing our Universal screener the assessment battery that we use to make sure that no child is falling through the cracks whether it's in uh excuse me math reading or in Behavior it's about identifying the appropriate interventions to use and it's also about generating a handbook that is a resource for both administrators and teachers to execute
033that mtss plan I've shared with you on other occasions elements and structures of the mtss plan and I'm perfectly prepared to answer any questions you have about that to execute that plan we're using the fast Bridge assessments as recommended by the state of Minnesota it's a Minnesota developed assessment for Minnesota students we're doing the early math and early reading assessments for students in K and one a math and a reading for grades 2 through 12 and Sabers for elementary mys saers for the older students grades 5 through 12 finally we're focusing on implementing the read act that starts with the work that we shared with you around our word study work and the work that we're doing in moving from um analytic phonics to synthetic phonics we also need to create a new District literacy
034position and we'll be bringing forth a recommendation for that position as its job description will be different from the old K4 literacy coordinator position which did the training and coaching of our literacy coaches we have also applied for a clsd grant at the state of Minnesota for $250,000 for staff development funds specifically for literacy and training them on what's called carry all um it's it's a language learning structure it is Staff Development around structured literacy provided by Carrie C a re eii from the University of Minnesota it's one of the three approved staff development structures from mde it is the most cost efficient one uh that we chose with that $250,000 we will be able to train 49 teachers and 11 um administrators in the the appropriate literacy model for the read act the note
035to make here is that's 41 teachers out of probably 200 who will need to be trained by the time the read Act is fully implemented it will take time and it will take resources which is why we're applying for Grants to support that work so this is that is the district plan these elements of the district plan are identified in each of the site plans as work that they have to do as well in fulfilling this and what you'll see coming up in a moment is each of the site plans you'll see their site goals and in that one page or many of the sites have identified what their action steps are relative to these pieces the number one thing that we're attempting to do is create alignment and coherence what we want to make
036sure is that we're all heading towards the same goal and that we're all on the same path in the sites that saw some of the the most dramatic gains even though it was localized between grades and content level one of the key things that the administrative teams and their site teams did was they focused very heavily on getting everyone on the same page no independent contractors no one gets to go Rogue this is what the team is doing and when they did that they saw really good things occur that's the state of the district academically this time I hope that I haven't made it too short too thin but I wanted to give you an opportunity to process and ask questions as such Mr chair director Warden uh Mr mer what is the uh is
037there a cap on the state grants on the clsd the limit for any school district was 250,000 we asked 500 it's 250 right okay what's CSD um local comprehensive State development this is the redak training they're talking about yeah we joined a CO cohort with Carrie C A REI you having to say that because car's sitting in the back um but we joined a cohort to make sure that since they were the ones who are the architect of much of the reak that we wanted to get our staff development from them so then with the reat did we change curriculum or or we won't know that until January respond to what they identify as the three uh proved curricula and I I'm I'm anxious for the implications of that I thought maybe this carry all
038could was one of them um car all is a staff development structure that can train on the framework but it's not an actual resource Goa and and that's I I don't know if Carrie and I are speaking the same vocabulary yet because I haven't seen what they publish a the the the the definition of curriculum that I operate on and I drive the systems on is curriculum is a relationship between outcomes standards inputs such as instruction and assessment that those three things combin together in that relationship is your curriculum the resource is the least important piece of this the the teachers's instructional Mastery relative to understanding the target understanding how we're going to assess it and responding to those moving between them that that's the the essence of instruction of of good teaching I don't
039know if that's what they're calling a curriculum or if they're calling a curriculum you know page 22 of of a bound resource and we'll find out in in January but they're only choosing three now we're not obligated to choose those three we're only obligated to choose of those three if we want to use use their money to buy them um my suggestion is we continue to respond to what our data tells us around what our students need and the number one thing we've identified is the phonics issue which is a key component to structured literacy and so we have to do that but how far that goes into guided reading small group reading decodable text got to see what they put on the table in January in my mind that's what we have to do
040do we have to take one of those three to qualify for that Grant you're looking for not for that Grant no it's s separate but that Grant will align is intended to align the PD that's coming in that Grant is intended to align with whatever those three are so they're going to that that Grant should teach us the instructional framework not necessarily the curriculum resource Mr Mera can you talk a little bit more about the fast Bridge assessments so you said they were math reading and saber Sabers is uh a behavior assessment that allows us to get a dipstick indicator on how a kid is feeling or how a kid is aware of their own executive function so if a student is identifying that they're feeling sad or if they're feeling anxious that's important information
041that we might not always get just from the observation of a child being quiet or being we need a little bit more data there in order to do that now good teachers have always done this and always done this through relationships but this is how we codify this and allows us to create systemic responses to this this gives us the ability to know when to reach out to the collaborative worker or when to just let a child be quiet and then let them process because they're doing well they're just a quiet child it it gives us one more tool in the toolbox for doing what I think we as parents really want teachers to do first and foremost which is to understand my child you know as a as a parent what was one of
042the key things I want I want the teacher to know who my child was okay um and I we believe that that does that for us it's one more tool CH Dr Heiden yeah I was privy to sitting in on the curriculum meeting and I want to share what Mr M is saying here sabes um I had a few people within the district reach out to me and they were concerned about this Tool uh this is not a file that we're setting up on students that we're going to track what they're going to be doing from K1 or grade one through grade 12 it's it's not a it's not a tracking tool for that it's a tool so under fastbridge we're able to see a child they're having some issues let's find out what they
043are and we don't want to let it go too far and and I I learned a lot about and I did a lot of research and I asked a ton of questions and it's it's not what some people think it's to be we're not setting up files on kids and I gave an example in the curriculum meeting that let's say a a husband and a wife divorce in grade seven and the child is just has kind of gone downhill Etc with grades Etc that's not going to be tracked I mean we're not going to have something in a file that says Little Johnny did this or little uh Annie did that I mean it's a tool to get quick results to the children and let's get them on the path so that they are able
044to catch up if necessary so I want wanted to add some some of my context from it as well I mean I think it's going to be a good thing and fastbridge is also a Minnesota based company isn't that Mr mura that is correct that's what I thought yeah so do we have these fast Bridge no we do not but there's only so there are only two approved from mde at the moment as universal screeners for mtss and the other is Dibbles 8 do we have to use MD approved people for your mtss because the state's not doing real hot so I really hate to kind of follow their lead on this well I think what you're seeing is that this is a new direction for them they've never given direction or requirement before they've
045mde historically has been extremely careful never to recommend a curriculum never to recommend anything other than here's what the research says about instruction here are your standards here's the MCAS here are the test backs good luck that's always what MD has done um the University of Minnesota through Carry has been granted an authority to be more prescriptive than mde does than the Department of Education and this is a brand new thing I think it's borne out of a frustration that we all share that okay you've got 361 school districts all trying to reinvent the wheel how about we all get on one page and see what happens we've tried it the other way let's try this way I don't know if if this is the right wheel all get on board on um I think
046it's clear I've shared my reservations in the past on that but that's the idea behind it and since we're not where we want to be with what we've done we should probably consider alternative so is it the state's idea to survey these kids about this behavioral stuff I think that they would would share research on that having the the behavior of the math and the reading you've got three key pillars of academic success in play at once and let me give you an example it's only o October 9th we have elementary students who have already missed 25 days of school okay so there's a behavior here that we need to dig into so do you need fastbridge to figure that out because I think you're pretty smart guy you know about the one that missed
04725 days of school well the 25 days of school is the symptom I spending and is mde the one that's driving this or is this mtss or I mean we're we're required to have benchmarking uh data in preparation of the MCA that's a different statute the math and the reading are always the areas where we historically did that we used star before that we used NWA or what's called map this is the one-on-one thing that you have the teachers do this is uh one-on-one for K and one 2 through 12 it's an online test the one-on-one I think you're talking about is our BAS literacy assessments okay that is a different assessment and as we do the imple implementation of the read act we probably will have to step away from that as a screener
048and Reserve that only as a diagnostic its footprint is very large it will compete for time with fastbridge and at this point it's probably too much assessing as much as we we do highly value that data you can't do both easily we're going to have to do this we chose this year to continue doing it to make sure that first time through with fastbridge we didn't know what kind of data going to get we didn't know if if if you know when we flip the switch the lights would go on so we wanted to make sure that we still did what we have always done so we had data to respond to as we turn the corner the next year we'll make the decision whether Bas gets sidelined or moved just to uh what we
049would call diagnostic work so you screen kids a much smaller pool you do diagnostic on based on your screener am I answering your question yeah you are I mean the thing that concerns me is is that if is that how many days a year are we going to screen the kids if that's 10 days or 12 days or periods what however you want to count it right um those are just days that we're not teaching them and it just feels to me like sometimes the government gets involved there's more reports more assessments and I just don't know where the value is you know it's like when you go for the football team you just run the 40- yard dash they don't have you do it every week you know we're not going to reassess them
050halfway through the season because they are what they you know I just I just I just hope that we're not that the state's not pushing us in a direction that we're spending money on Fast bridge this is going to be the new save all gain all and that instead of letting Educators educate teachers teach okay they're constantly giving surveys out to check on people because we're just doing so many of them and we're just adding another one right uh we're trying to make it not an ad but a transition too because we we're we're conscious of exactly the concern that you're sharing about the amount of testing there is a State statue it says you're limited to 11 hours of testing throughout the entire year per child okay really yeah and we're up against it
051okay hear that the elementary we're we're up against it the fast Bridge assessing or what we call the benchmarking is something we're required to do three times a year so uh each assessment takes you know 25 to 30 minutes roughly so at the Young levels it takes less time you know the the K1 K2 paper pencil ones are about 5 minutes a piece but the teacher has to do that with a child because a child can't manipulate the computer in kindergarten to to take an assessment they don't have 100 sight word vocabulary um that's why the Bas question Looms on us because that's what pushes us up against the the the limit is that Bas testing so my expectation is we'll probably have to make a decision by that about the same time that we're
052examining the curricula in j January that way we have a comprehensive plan to bring forward so we can spend June July August prepping for any change that needs to occur well it's pretty cool that nisah and Riverside and foru did as well as they did I'm hoping that there's some things we can learn from those other uh schools that maybe can go across I know it's kind of could be an anomaly but let's hope maybe it's not we can track the trend lines and we'll see it see how it goes you know 2020 is a zero year there's no data so everything after 2020 is a brand new trend line and we're only really in year three now so we'll be able to create the first three-point trend line since the pandemic and then the
053pandemic is a is a Asm toote in the equation at that point it's all starts over we have to rebaseline it and go from there I think in all fairness too we need to um recognize Improvement in the respective buildings not compare the respective buildings because Nevers shared out the buildings this way before and I I'll be honest I I wasn't comfortable with it we this should never be competition between buildings it should be an opportunity to say hey have you are you trying something that we haven't thought of and and hopefully supporting that conversation collegially and collaboratively um no so there's no intent to create that but sometimes the without seeing the the site data specifically that the issues of rates of poverty and the increased rates of special ed in schools of high
054poverty gets masked by the stats because it's a smooth over we're outperforming this state which we do but if you look at the mathematics there are certain sites that are more driving that than others and that's that's what we want to equalize out Mr chair um Mr Mera the um it's exciting to see and hear about what we're doing with uh reading and math this particular and behavior as well because I think that's really really really important hasn't been looked that much except for when it needs to be looked at you're absolutely correct there's too much postmortem analysis so it's exciting um and and and also I'm pleased to hear that uh we're moving with um a u alter or other phonetic kind of things as well that we have we as a board have
055um said needs we hope it will happen as well my question is this um will all of this continue to happen if the $250,000 because it's going to take training and lots of training for our staff um and rightfully so uh if the $250,000 Grant doesn't come to fruition what's going to happen and let me let me also ask this what can we do to help that process to to answer the first question will it happen yes I'm going to say yes and it will be a lot harder we have to do it yeah whe whether the money whether mde or the state is giving us resources or not our children need this so we have to find a way the the the the the support that I would ask from the board is recogniz
056ing the value of systemic staff development continuous improvement work is Staff Development curriculum work is Staff Development you know you roll the clock back to when you and I were younger men in staff development a long role it's a long role and then I yours is longer than mine but you know I did start in thank you for that reminder I appreciate that oh that was my pleasure John it I started in the 80s you started in the 70s or the 60s but uh the the the old model was everyone got a little slice of the site staff to bumie you went to whatever conference you wanted to highly individualized depending on the efficacy of the individual highly invaluable or not so much we can't approach our limited resources that cavalierly anymore we have to
057be very focused very targeted we have to be able to justify our use of the 2% set aside we have to justify our investment our commitment to atps as these are targeted structures within the district that support the district Mission values and the The Continuous Improvement action plans and asking for that alignment that's why last spring you saw me bring forward policy around asdc that that's supposed to be the teacher driven committee that does the work to align continuous Improvement as staff development and what's the action the most important action we're taking right now is the development of the mtss plan that will require staff development resources and that will that is by definition continuous improvement work that's where we need to be I'm Mr chair I'm assuming that every District in the state 332
058or whatever it is is applying for these grants as well I'm not so sure about that because this one the clsd grant is a second posting on unused money oh okay so I'm kind of hoping it's you know don't tell anyone I thought I saw a thing that they were but they allocated 7 million for it I don't remember how much it was but they did didn't seem like a lot for 361 schools there's 16.7 million allocated for staff development as well but that's different than this grant oh and and but again that 16.7 361 school districts intermediate individual to mass are we just going to automatically get that is that no youly for that too yeah and MD is cautioning us if you see the October update for uh the react on the MD's
059website they are cautioning that there's going to be more demand than there are resources so have your ducks in a row yeah that's why we're we're focusing on the now we want to hit January AR one ready to respond to the con yeah so we could get more money yes possibly possibly or we could get zero or we could get zero correct one of the have any yet I know I know I know one of the challenges for us in competitive grants with the state of Minnesota and the federal government is our rate of diversity has not been high enough to qualify for points in their rubric on those items we might qualify for students in poverty but we might not be as diverse as needed that's that's been a challenge for us in the
060past it's why one of one of the many reasons why identification is so important not only do we want to know who we are so we know how to be what we want to be but sometimes it is a challenge for us and and that is why Carrie applied for the max of 250 we may not get 250 we may get 150 but we W for the max correct my understanding from the meeting yes we're shooting for the moon M Ross did a lot of very good work on that she should be uh recognized for it um I don't know Ryan Janet can I have the screen back for just a moment please yeah I have a question on one of your slides and I don't really want I can't get out of my head
061so I have to ask it go to your math one MCA math what's F FRP oh that's students in poverty free and reduceed price to launch FP that's the old term for it we now called educational benefit I'm sorry I still use the old terms once in a while it's fine did that was that the only question no the qu my only point is I was just I'm sure you see it just like I do but if you look at 2017 my point is the Delta between them isn't changing a lot if you look at from 2017 we're at 51% of f FRP now we're down to 34 and nonf FRP was 77 and now we're down to 61 so the down 17% the other one's down 16% then you go to special ed kind
062of the same 31 to 22 it's down nine you know it's like it's like we kind of have a trend going and of course 20 is in there but we were dropping before 20 and then 20 just kind of Tanked us and it's nice to see we're making a comeback because you know some of those math scores actually went back up a little bit I I think as some of the behavior issues and some of the trauma clears through we're going to see that but we can't rely on just the passage of time we have to be more intentional that's why we're starting to Tinker with the instructional Frameworks we're changing how we're assessing to to answer what you raised earlier about fast bridge in the assessments what the fastbridge the a math assessment tells
063us is it tells us a couple of things it tells us that here's a group of kids who are not at grade level all right and if we dig deeper it will tell us these are the benchmarks they're missing so the teacher can choose then the appropriate intervention to use in class so the data cues the teacher to respond and the fastbridge package has the interventions in it so you didn't just buy a test you bought a test that cues to an intervention and they're different kinds there's whole group like the whole class 50% of my kids filled my quiz I'm reteaching here's a new way to do here's a different way to do it so you're not just doing it louder and slower and if I have a small group of kids here's a
064small group intervention or if I have an individual kid here's an individual intervention this is what the fastbridge data offers us is the ability to drill in and be more targeted and efficient with time that's what we're trying to do what we want to do is build a system where every kid finds a way to be successful whether it's in tier one tier 2 or tier three and what I mean by that is our goal is that 85% of our kids are at grade level in core classroom instruction tier one 15% of our kids or 10 to 15% of our kids are at grade level with core instruction plus some help and that last 5% of our kids we want to be at grade level with core instruction some help and some highly individualized high-intensive
065help that 10 and 15 that 10% 5% though only works if 85% are successful in core that's what we got to drive to first that's the the first goal for us in the mtss program is tier one instruction is yielding that and that's why you see the change in the language of the um what uh the world's best Workforce goals the world's best Workforce goals now say read at grade level each grade they no longer say read well by third grade because they've WR recognize that you got to get to that level every single year because otherwise what happens is what's occurring to us students fall behind and eventually they fall enough behind they fall into special Leed and that that's not the way we want to be we cannot intervene ourselves to success so
066our number one goal has got to be in core instruction and deliverance there one other point uh and I drilled down on this at the uh curriculum uh uh committee meeting we're not creating labels for these kids either uh that was a concern that was raised by some some people to me uh um kids are not going to be labeled uh I guess the one gal said jars get labeled not students MH so uh that was uh asked and answered and quite uh verifly as far as we're not going to label these kids so that was another concern so so what I'm asking for is the approval of mtss fast Bridge assessments and our work in responding to the re act to be the district continuous Improvement priorities in response to the student achievement report
067report so moved second okay we have a motion from director Hyman and a second from director Ward to approve the uh District site continuous Improvement plan presented by director Mera any further discussion I just need to say thank you this was very informative and this was a lot of work and I appreciate having this information special Kudos go out to Christina lungren Sue Anderson uh the the the staff of the teaching and learning department they there was a team effort they did a good job thank you who's going to make the mtss plan do you buy that or is that an internal thing we did internal we created it do you have people that are experts in that field or do you feel as though principles do I mean who does it one sitting to
068the left of you you do it why I'm not doing it but there's a lot of people that have a lot of skills and are very you guys make the handbook like make the plan there are templates that you can get from Minnesota Department of Education then you just tweak it for our and then you you put your data in you put your structures in we also as a leadership team went through 15 trainings from mde throughout the last 18 months uh for several hours on Wednesday afternoons being trained in MTS every principal participated uh in that uh representatives from the co-op participated in that some teachers did too any further discussion hearing none all in favor of the motion signify by saying I please oppose same sign motion carries thank you for round one
069director Mera it was the shortest PowerPoint I ever brought to you I do want the record to to to show okay the next one I'm hoping uh we can move through more quickly because it's really A Narrative of what we just talked through this is a report that is required by the state of Minnesota to be filed every single year the deadline for this is actually in December but because we have everything for it now because it comes out of our data Retreat we do these all together just to get it done and then Sue and I ship this off to the state of Minnesota and what it tells you is these are the goals that we're required to work on and they're reflected in what we've talked about in continuous Improvement we want all
070children ready for kindergarten we want to close all achievement gaps in the district we want to have all students achieve grave level Prof uh Proficiency in Reading at each level all students attain College and Career Readiness before graduating from high school and all students graduate from high school in four years so you saw each of those component pieces in in the presentation of the student data what we've done this year is we've changed two things number one I've already addressed read well by third grade is now read well at each grade and the second one is we are submitting for MD's review a different way of calculating and measuring career and college readiness uh Christina lungren Andrea Rusk uh several teachers at the high school have been working for two years years uh and did
071an amazing job in the pathways structure for students towards graduation and in there are opportunities for students to demonstrate competencies beyond what the MCA shows and so what we wanted to do is find yet other data points other than the Minnesota comprehensive assessments to be a more comprehensive and full well-rounded look at that's why I submitted to you the website there's a link in there on redefining ready so taking AP classes a Prof a score on the ACT taking classes in the trades or in the vocational aptitude areas these are opportunities for kids to show a different set of competencies that are career ready competencies and this is an area of strength for brard high school and brard middle school for that matter in building that programming so because they've done this work in building
072the pathways we thought it appropriate now to try to identify a better way to measure that so not all the eggs of success are in the basket of an MCA it's an important assessment we value it it's only one data point of several I love that change I love the idea of recognizing you know that the opportunity Beyond High School also involves walking out of here with some sort of credential or certification or you know hours of community service that it's yes it's AP courses and college credits but it's those other things as well that they've got a marketable um asset in themselves no the work that they've done at the high school on this is amazing short of if anybody gets a chance you should look at the course catalog for the high school
073it is impressive and amazing so our students have lots and lots and lots of varied opportunities so in this action I'm just asking for the acceptance of this report as it gets sent to the Minnesota Department of Education make a motion second okay we have a motion from director donlinger with a second from director spear to approve the world's best best Workforce plan as presented any further discussion or questions for director mer director question one question uh Mr Mera uh and I I think we've talked about this in curriculum meetings so I I just want to bring it out in the public uh as well uh do you feel one of our biggest challenges is going to be training the teachers that ordinarily aren't involved with literacy because now under the under the uh world's
074best Workforce it's not just grade three it's grade four five six seven and through high school and and some of those teachers probably have not really been involved with literacy that much in fulfillment of the read act any teacher at any level Who's involved with the instruction in literacy has to be appropriately trained okay so okay okay to to step out to the the the gray just a little all teachers are literacy teachers within their content area to the extent that there there are subtle changes and subtle differences what in the kinds of reading you do in math or doing science versus perhaps your English class it's there comes a point where no one at the upper GD levels is really trained to be a reading teacher I was a high school English teacher I
075never taught reading I assigned it okay um had I learned some things some tricks earlier I might have been better at my job but in those days you didn't you covered content you're a Content specialist um we focused on vocabulary development was our number one strategy there needs to be more than vocabulary development in learning how to read at the upper grades but vocabulary is different in math and biology and social studies than it is in language arts and so there is an area for them to be within their content area reasonably and still do some form of instruction on how to read you look at science science uses the passive voice far more than any other level okay just being familiar with that alone can very much help someone penetrate you know complex text
076so thank you yeah one thing so you know you know me these things just blow my mind but we've got onethird of our kids give or take a percent that are missing are not making it to 90 days 90% of the school they're supposed to go to like you said You' already got kids them Miss 25 days so we've got a goal to go from 67.5 to 70.5 to me it just sounds crazy and I mean I'm not here every day in the fight with thck you guys are but isn't there don't we have rights I mean doesn't isn't this treny isn't there laws that parents have to make get their kids to school I mean how does onethird of the kids I mean I know it's better than it is in Minneapolis it's probably
077better than State average but it seems to me like man I can't imagine back in the days like how do how does that happen how what what what do you guys do to them nothing is it okay they just get to come back tomorrow and there there no consequences this is where drilling into the why they're missing I think matters um Tim Mera may have skipped a few uh classes in high school um more so than he should have um in the gods of ironic punishment made him a high school teacher there you go the reason there was his innate immaturity that's different than the student who staying home to take care of younger siblings great so yes you're right there's educational neglect can come into play and there are statutes about this and our
078partner in that work is the county are they helping you I think they're doing all that they can with what resources they have that's what I thought as as with our need to do interventions academically we have to prioritize our work and and they probably have to prioritize theirs as well so for you to get this reading up or to get the math scores up with someone that shows up for school 50% of the time it's going to be quite the challenge yes well then Downstream of that if they've been missing that much school there are probably behavioral issues that come with them when they do come back if a child doesn't believe they can have success that can blow outside sideways very quickly I bet so that that those engagement pieces get them in
079keep them in really do matter I think there are some systems in place I'm I'm guessing the family service collaborative workers are absolutely we heavily rely on them attendance and reaching out to families and um maybe I'm being naive but it feels like the heightened focus on mtss has to have some impact on that too right I think it will it it also breeds awareness you know the more we communicate about Behavior data you know the kids think of it this way the children do learn something about themselves by taking an assessment so if they're being asked to reflect on their state of executive function they're learning about being self-aware which can improve their executive function the more we communicate with parents that we're doing this the more parents become aware that perhaps some of
080the opportunities that they took to you know what we're going to let her stay home from school today instead of nudging them out the door you know playing in the gray area will help by just being focused on it that way we're not having to send the 5ay 10day letters home that are threatening legal action which we do and we sent quite a few of them home you get to that 15 days of consecutive absence there is that's a mandatory drop we have no choice That's the Law you're just dismissed from the school you can reply and we'll work with you but you we want to prevent getting to that level of intensity because that's the kid who may never really come back even if they're physically there at that point s any other discussion
081we have a motion on the table from director Don Linger seconded by director spear uh hearing no further discussion those in favor of approving the world's best work for Force plan as presented signified by saying I please I poose same sign motion carries R apologize I shut down the uh screen so I closed out everything else when I closed my okay good last cuz I killed it all right and are you um are you performing in superintendent H Hanstead for the SRO contract I do not think so I think sit here and do it Marcy are you doing the SRO contract yeah let's do it that [Applause] way think it's more Q&A then it is presentational Mercy thanks Mr thank you director Mara thank you you want Little NE your so it's a little bu
082first question I have same contract as before we're just going to reup we're we just uh prated the amount and made the effective date October 10th so we changed what we're paying them based on the amount of time they weren't providing the Direct Services to the district but the contract's the exact same contract we terminated a meeting ago yes okay um and then I think recognition needs to go out to the entire board but specifically to director Ward uh for taking point on sending the letter to the governor's office um I'm sure it was red I think it was I got a few calls but the but the thing about this contract is is you know the stuff that I've read in the newspaper and of course you can always believe what the newspaper says
083talks about our attorney general making amendments to the law now if I remember my civics class the only people that can do that are legislators they're the only ones that can amend the law p m Ellison the only thing I read was you made clarifications well they weren't very clear I'm talking about some amendments here that you know he he was talking about and then the uh attorney general uh for henan County I mean she came out and said just the opposite of what uh Ellison said uh so then there's some school districts that are just they're kind of back at where they were before well I think it's fair to say that if you look at this Statewide there's a political element to this and there's no reason to hide from that because in
084reality that doesn't exist here for us in in the same way this is just a simple matter of we got caught up in political ping pong that was taking place in the state capital correct or rather the Poli the Briner Police Department did we really didn't we just were a casualty of it and the other thing is there's nothing we can do we can sit here and say yeah yeah let's use the same contract but to me it's the Briner city council that needs to make the determination as to what's going to happen and not the police chief because the police chief answers he makes a recommendation to them I believe they're meeting a week from tonight to contct board meeting on the 16th so there's no way we can I mean we're just going
085to approve what are we doing toight we're signing the contract to send it to them so they can sign it and just renew it like it was 90 days ago okay and that's typically what we do um it's who's ever has uh the first meeting basically so if the city was to have the first meeting they would approve it and then we would approve it or vice versa so liability the issues have all gone away right their their attorney is comfortable with it is my understand they're going to the city attorney is comfortable how about our County attorney did he weigh in it or did anybody ask him about it um or not maybe not I believe it was more so on their okay really of concern of anybody that could be legally sued or
086otherwise pursued through the police side of it yeah up through the city of Brainard I'm concerned about the school district right and the school district never had any increased liability throughout this entire process we were just like I said sort of an innocent bystander to this whole thing well we have we have a lot of increased liability I mean not the resource officer level not the resource officer no that's a whole other topic our staff has got right well you've got the language in the law is the language in the law s but in the end this is confined to the SRO thing which I'll support under my renewed objection that I don't like how little power we have over to uh the ability to choose who that resource off officer is in our schools
087the Briner Police Department still has that um we can they hire the person yeah we can squeak but they can overrule us and put whatever officer they want in our school and I'm not in love with that provision and I'll bring it up again when we renew the contract next year and we'll see where it goes and also make a motion second Mr chair director Ward also um you know it's I it's wonderful that I think think that we have finally added some protection for our children and our staff period that was the whole purpose of all of what we have done all of us together in the community as well and Statewide but it's not a done deal it will be a legislative action next year the only problem I had and we had
088is that I I don't think it should wait until next year I still think it should be now or yesterday or last week or whatever but it is what it is and and I'm thankful that we are were able to get a contract for our children and our staff well said I mean it goes back to again you don't know the value of deterrent measures until you don't have them it's very hard to measure prevention when it works which begs the question how's everything been going at the high school is Miss R still here sorry oh you're how's everything going been going without the SRO uh it's been well but we also had an agreement that our s Drew uh would be assigned to our neighborhood so um he's made it a point and other
089law enforcement from Brand PD have made a point to app that Community Partnerships are important so do we have any further discussion on the SRO contract as presented hearing none all in favor of approving the SRO contract by saying I please I I I I post same sign motion carries all right next up is director TC with the approval of the proposal for Mike's Tree Company for the snow removal services for 2324 which we're told is going to be uh not as much snow this year I I'm going to hold you to that because uh the last called everybody I know the last two years uh have not have not been that way so so um yes in front of you is a proposal that was received during our RFP process and I heard earlier
090a few people commenting about procurement thresholds and and what we have to do and follow for State guidelines when we procure products and services and this is one of those so um when we when we have a product that is over $175,000 we do have two options to us one is a sealed L bid process um the other is a best value procurement which we did not use in this in this here so um in front of you is the bid for snow removal services we only received one we are a large district and um what I will say in my conversations with many of these plowing vendors that are out there uh fewer and fewer people are wanting to do it I think they're transitioning from less commercial and maybe a little more residential
091it's my my speculation at that point um but there are few fewer and fewer people to get to bid on services like this and so um I feel very fortunate Mike's has been uh Mike has performed very well for us the past two years um and I'm glad that they bid for us again here this year that is it is an increase um from what we had previously it's about um it's a 22% increase from last year and to director Bo Bo's comment we had a record snowfall last year I think that is a portion of this increase we had over 85 inches of snow last year we had 77 inches the year prior and 48 the year prior to that so um if we could rewind and and go back to those two two
092years ago levels I would be okay with it for the most part and these go year to year this is a onee this is a one-year bid yep that's correct Mr chair director Ward thank you um Mr Tey um I as I looked at this pre uh prior to the meeting there were two uh brard Learning Center and niswa Elementary that are not that are not bid on y what's with that two years ago um the first year uh that they provided services for us uh they did plow all sites for us um however we were under construction at many of those so it worked that they had Manpower and equipment to plow the sites that we were not under construction at so last year when we were evaluating the proposals they asked us if
093they could strategically not travel to niswa and to the east side of Brainard um just where they staged their equipment logistically it made sense for them they said they would plow it um it would cost us more money and so what we did there is I have two grounds workers that work in the district um they are taking care of those two sites um and then they are going around to the elementary schools and they help clear playgrounds and they help clear other stuff so there's a portion of this snow removal service that we do with our grounds workers again I have two employees um so I you know to have them plow every single lot would be impossible we would never be open on time to have who Mike's Mike's plow no I have
094I have two I have two grounds workers um that work for the district so can take care of the Lots at Miss they go up to niswa yep they go up to niswa and they take care of the Brainard Learning Center because they do stage out of the high school Farm on the east side of town um in your discussions with them I don't know that it's outlining The Proposal in terms of snow removal I mean I know one of the issues we had last year due to the sheer quantity of snow was the high school parking lot the new parking lots and particular got kind of full up is there any contingency or discussion about how we might do that differently if that happened again or not we so we pay for removals M
095so the the throughout the year obviously we evaluate what we have on site you know how many stalls are we taking up with snow we try to minimize that to the best of our ability we don't remove it at every single snowfall either so it's kind of like that balance and um Mr csmith and Miss Russ get the high school we're in Communications regularly and if they say hey we get a couple student complaints because they're running short on parking we call them up and the next day at 6 5:00 in the morning they're there with semis pulling snow so it's not an umbrella service provided under the contract it's a hourly an how on demand how we how we ask for it and at the at the end of it there that's the equipment
096that they use so if it's front end loader and semi or okay skid steer and dump box or whatever they'll they'll move snow however we need to okay and that's where last year that's where a lot of our costs above the contract came from I think we had about 20,000 in removing snow last year across the parking lots it was a lot of snow Dr Hyman yeah uh full disclosure uh director TC is my nephew so I just want everyone to know that I've mentioned it a few times uh couple of questions uh lost time to injuries and staff and students did we have a lot last year no we've actually the last two years has been have been really good um prior to Mike's providing snow removal services for us so they've done it
097the last two Winters um we didn't plow unless it was over 3 in of snow so I'm sure you all have a sidewalk and you all have an apron or you all have property where if you plow uh regularly you can keep that snow pack down if you don't you end up with a skating Rank and um in years prior we did have L time accidents from staff and students and I mean we still get them we do the the best we can trying to keep our walkways and and drive Lanes free and clear of icense no but um you know we really do we really do feel like we've been minimizing those last couple years and if we if director Bennett was here we'd talk about our loss time claims and for snow injuries
098and they are very low one is the massively senior board member here with my three years almost U doesn't matter Mike's transition was really good I remember the first year I was on the board when we were dealing with the prior situation Mike's has done really an excellent job over the last two years especially given some unique weather conditions it doesn't matter how much snow we get we're paying we' there's a monthly a monthly and a yearly rate per parking lot so it's the same it's it's essentially the same number um it's just broken down over the eight months that we have the contract set up for uh there were there was a there was a lot of discussion and and director Bo may remember this the gentleman that sat would would have been to
099your left uh that was there before Mr heglin brought up the comment about you know it's it's a flat fee so if you know we get a really bad year mics loses their backside on the project like they did probably last year and that's why we're seeing a little bit of an increase in price however if we have a really really bad year then then we are kind of out a little bit but when you stretch this out over years and years and years and you have this uh it's kind of like paying for insurance you know you pay for it whether you use it or not same sort of a deal like if we get really hammered with snow um we're going to be taken care of so and I want I just make
100another comment uh more so for the board uh for us to consider uh when we start talking about next year uh and that is uh right now you're under the gun for my understanding as far as your budget is concerned we've got what is it 3 million square feet that you have to maintain and you have a budget of what $824,000 this year a little this year is a little bit more but next year that's that budget's and next year it's dropping up about the 785 or whatever y just something that we we need to we need to at least think about and that is we charge kids to park okay where does that parking money go in my opinion it should be going back into Mr T's budget because he's the one that's got
101to plow if we don't plow the parking lots they in't no place to park and I don't know what the policy has been of the school district prior to this I frankly I don't care what what it was but I think we need to look at that from a board standpoint of why isn't he receiving those assets his budget right now is under pressure this comes out of the general fund um budget which I mean again it's it's all the snow plot comes out of general fund correct it's Services um well thank goodness it out it comes out of the general fund yep Mar am I correct on that General F this one's yeah that's again since we're a little off topic anyway um are the the stairs at G working now yes okay okay
102just just something for us to to think about uh going into next year because uh you know I don't know uh I don't even know how much money gets raised uh through parking fees but I mean I would think I'm not an accountant uh I was never never good at math uh I'm good at spending but I'm I wasn't very good at math but uh I I would like to think that that should flow back into his budget and that's for another day another discussion but I want to bring it up now and that's why I gave full disclosure I'm not trying to pad his budget but I mean if he's got a budget that he can't do his work well zers why isn't some of that Revenue going back into his budgets so something
103to think about Mr chair um Mr Tey is uh I'm I still want to go back to nissah and Brer learning and Center y what's Plan B if those guys get SI those two guys you talking about if they get sick or their equipment you know every snow plow plow that I know and and we use it at our house at some point in time in the winter their equipment's down yep so what's because I don't want to see n Elementary or Briner Learning Center all of a sudden not covered we you know we so we've got we've got three pieces of equipment that we're that we travel and plow with um one of them is at mainly on site at Forest so when I said two I meant I have two people that travel
104I have another one that mainly stages at Forest VI middle school so you know if so if one of those guys is out sick we can cover it typically or they'll the one guy will come in extra early and start that you know start work for the day earlier to cover that we've we haven't had that instance where we've had a a gap where we couldn't do it um and if we if we need assistance um I I can tell you that we've had conversations with Mike's if we need assistance we can get it okay you know they would roll from Sportland corners or wherever else that they're plowing just call Terry at the pickle he'll help you out oh DJ's got a guy thank you y all right any further discussion or questions for
105director TC has it been moved yet it has not I'll move it all second feels like director Hyman got in there just a fraction earlier uh so we have a motion from director Ward a second from director Hyman to approve the Mike's Tree uh bid and contract for 2023 2024 snow plowing and removal any further discussion hearing none those in read well I just want to point a Clarity for you um so the the the price increase is not in the general fund in the in the buildings and grounds general fund budget I was with um Marcy earlier and this could be a would recommend it would be like a one-time allocation out of the unassigned fund balance to the buildings and grounds Department to cover that increased price um and then next year we
106can reevaluate Services if if it so pleases the board not sure much pleases this board but we'll take it as it as it comes so is that like another motion another thing you're asking for I think it would just be Direction from to uh to the business services manager on how we would fund that I think the the two board members on the finance committee should dig into that more oh man yeah I think so that's your job John you're the snow guy all right thanks for the clarification director TC any further discussion clarification or questions hearing none those in favor signify by saying I please I oppose same sign motion carries thank you direct t uh next up is the approval of the first reading of the msba policies as presented we only have
107one tonight since we wiped out a few on the consent calendar and this one's around vending machines so as you saw there was a number of them that we reviewed and this one was one that is an msba recommended policy and we do not have that in place right now and there has been some questions about if we should get some in some of our sites so just wanted to get this in our our um queue so that if we do potentially get them bring them on site we have the policy in place excellent so since this is a brand new policy it's going to have to go three times right exactly okay so do we we don't make any we don't do anything we can ask questions yeah we can ask we can ask
108for the policy committee to review this if there are things in the policy you would like to see added there's no motion or anything just we move to approve the first reading then it goes to policy committee and we'll take a look at it and see if we want to tweak it at all I'll make a motion and approve the first reading I'll second okay we have a motion from director doninger with a second from director spear to approve the first reading of msba policy 720 for vending machines any further discussion director Hyman just a question we don't have no vending machines in our schools at all huh no so there are some in break rooms and but not for students okay since Co I suppose huh uh I think with construction I want to
109see the high school you don't want to touch those things you know Brave any further discussion do vending machines generate income or not income but they can I mean that was I think more so the goal was to see if we could have students stocking them learning that um and then potentially also earning some funds in their Student Activities that was the inquir I got okay interesting is there a bid process for this or are we just going to go pick somebody and or we going to call a bunch of people up and say hey you want to put vending machine or what's what are we going to do so it's in it's in inquiry only right now about that okay so we don't have any procedures no processes none of that we don't need
110much and that's why we have to money Mars that's why we have a a policy we I suppose we need to look at H yeah I think the chair of the policy committee should get right on that yeah I think the uh second person on that committee is taken over because I might miss the next meeting uh no in all seriousness um so we're back to that I see in this policy 10,000 well we don't even know how much we're going to make so we can just talk to anybody we want right now right right right I I imagine that if we did want to go further into this we would solicit bids okay it all depends on if you read through their if you want to use a vendor or if you want to
111do it um District staff students so we have to decide which way we want to do it and in theory you have an existing vendor for the ones that do are in place in non-student areas today a lot of those ones are done by staff like for instance the one here at wesby was just done by staff they stock it we got to buy the product they provide us the vending machine or we have to pay for that uh I think that one was our own machine I'm not 100% on that okay but we're going to sell stuff that sells them right like a lot of sweet stuff you know or is it going to be Alla the restrictions that rules rules and rules huh yes there are we can only have certain times that
112they can be on all there's all sorts of rules on that really yes wow we just got to get the policy and we could talk we call her on on Wednesday talk to her about where the vending machine going can be on the vending machine committee there you go subcommittee have to be a subcommittee I suppose wow well I could see where it could be a money maker I mean you know and it would be good for the students if they could incorporate it somehow into some classroom activity or whatever I won't support it unless there's cheit in all the vending machines just putting it out there noted any further discussion hearing none all in favor of approval of policy 720 first reading msba policy 720 please signify by saying I same sign all right
113next up uh would have been the report of the evaluation committee the reason that this was originally placed on the agenda for this evening was in anticipation of a board appeal of the committee's decision and as I understand it there is no appeal pending is that correct pending yes but it was not coming tonight okay okay so in the absence of that what we're going to do uh as director Hyman indicated on October 25th there is a policy committee meeting director Hyman chairs that committee I second seat that committee with him and we are going to begin digging into policy 606 in fact uh superintendent Han and director mura and I'm sure a cast of of others uh have already begun going in at the board's direction to begin looking at some of the more
114complicated elements of the policy um so we're in a weird position with the policy as it relates to we're waiting for a template or a new policy to come down from msba so almost all of the policies that we use as a school district are based on boilerplate policies that come to us from msba director Ward superintendent Han and I were at a uh msba session back in gosh was it June already was June or July and uh we went to a session on that where msba uh legal indicated that they were going to draft a new policy um that Not only was it going to be clearer than what they have today which dates back to Antiquity uh we revised ours in nine years ago but that they intend to create sub policy for
115library books versus curriculum to make the delineation between those a little bit more clear so it's a long way of saying what we don't want to do is go in and completely rewrite 606 at the district level only to get a boilerplate policy from msba that somehow conflicts we're going to try to tweak it um one of the speakers tonight spoke about the series The Books in the series we'll talk about that at the policy committee level and we'll talk about several other elements so if you're that interested in what's going on with policy 606 if it will probably come back to the board in November for another look based on what the policy committee does here at the end of October so please feel free to attend that October 25th policy committee meeting on
116606 the public it is open to the public um but that's a really long way of saying that's why it's not on the agenda tonight we had it as a placeholder in case you chose to appeal this evening all right so that said let's move along to um committee meeting updates a dog all right well let's go up first up is long range planning with the uh sistic stylings of director Don Dillinger know what that means um we uh we met a couple weeks ago uh we went through the the we're doing that ADA look over of all our playgrounds and all of our facilities and that the company's not quite done with it yet and then the next deal is the high school Farm has been kind of an issue because the county has
117all of a sudden decided they don't want to have it anymore and I don't know where Reed went but I think we've had it for 40 years 35 years for5 or $25 a month or a year leas um so we're trying to work some stuff out with them it's in process and last but not least we met with uh Community Ed P went through fees structures and who's paying for cleaning and what we're charging for uh buildings and other than that there's no hot deals except that we're almost done with these projects and they're just going through the punch list and there's a few things left that need to get straightened out and we'll be uh out of the construction business back in the education business excellent thank you director Doner uh curriculum committee meeting
118director Heyman well thanks to uh Mr mera's uh great explanations my talk will be a lot shorter uh we uh we talked about the continuous Improvement plan he mentioned that we talked about mtss we had a lot of questions uh regarding um behavioral issues and the saber uh uh assessment tool Etc talked about fast Bridge uh so all of the things that director Mera talked about we talked about in our committee meetings uh along with the read act um I also want to give a a shout out to to Miss Ross uh who is our director of student support services and Equity she's leading that charge on that 20 $50,000 Grant um I didn't realize it was separate from the redact money so this is man if we can get some more money we'll be
119fantastic uh we had our first uh District advisory uh committee meeting it was the first one in September and basically uh director Mera went through and reviewed the world's best Workforce that he we gave the presentation here tonight and also gave us a calendar of events uh for the entire school year because what he does is he brings in the curriculum experts there's always a lead curriculum person and he needs to get those people on the calendar U so that they can prepare for their uh discussions at the uh at at the Dak meeting so that was that was went through and other than that I really don't have anything else great thank you director heidman next up is information we'll start off with the bpsf update from director spear a couple things I can
120mention we welcomed three new board members to the brainer Public Schools Foundation um Daniel Hood from CTC Ashley gabric from mid Minnesota Federal Credit Union and an silberg from the county so if you see them um tell them thank you for supporting schools and being part of that we also um devised what's being called The Warrior Club sponsorship ship for events for brainer Public Schools foundation and it's meant to streamline any kind of sponsorships like for the big event and for um the the Bingo event and so forth that are coming forward to make that more of a a one-time deal for businesses to be able to come in and offer and sponsor those events rather than every time there is event to have to go back to businesses and and the idea is to
121have some more value ads that we can bring to that and in more of a relationship than a than a oneoff offering so so far so good on the conversations around that um the 4 a grant cycle is open right now and the deadline for that is October 24th so those dollars are for teachers that have uh special projects that they want to bring forward and need funding for and to save the dates for you December 4th is a Monday is a big Bingo event and February 3rd is the big event and that will be at Grand View very good thank you director spear all right moving along to director Breen with the latest on the equity task force okay so um we had our first meeting for the school year in September um we'll
122meet again tomorrow um we the equity task force has um offered to present the committee's recommendations from the 2022 23 work that was done um regarding social emotional behavioral supports and future needs at our next Schoolboard Retreat which is not been scheduled at this point that's correct we're targeting something something something November okay okay okay so um Aaron carard is very um willing to present at that when we get together for that meeting um yeah there were many recommendations around creating inclusive and welcoming language training on responding to Bill bullying and harassment situations for students and staff and creating building Equity Liaisons to support questions concerns that arise in the building so those will be some of the um recommendations that she will reference when she speaks with us going forward we are really focusing
123on creating Community Partnerships um when we talk about community and schools it's those connections between schools businesses formal and informal organizations that enrich students School experiences so we're hoping to um figure out how we can reach out to the community organizations to provide students with a variety of opportunities that's where we're at great thanks for that I mean I I apologize I missed that last meeting I'll be at the one tomorrow I think but um those recommendations that are coming for fourth or at least what Aon wants to present to the board retreat we're still inside that student safety bucket right right now inside the student safety Bucket from last year we're starting to move into now this community so just for the board's edification the equity task force as it kind of was reimagined
124U maybe a little over a year and a half ago the idea was there were areas of con of concern or Focus that were identified and the first one of those on the list was student safety so there were surveys that were done there was analytics around data and Tim and you can probably speak to it better than I can but um anyway they were prioritized and student safety was felt to be the first one because it impacts the entire student population and so that's really where the focus has been for almost the entire time that I've been on there and certainly the entire time that you've been on there did I say all that correctly Tim yeah you did na it okay thank you very much Michelle all right Business Services report just feel
125like we should play like the empire emper March from Star Wars when Marcy comes up with the financial so in your board packet is the financial report the only thing to note is um the post employment benefits that's the fun 45 if you're looking at comparing it to last year we are higher and that's because we did have a retirement in August so just an FYI on why that variation is a little bit higher um and then with the conversation earlier I just wanted to address the parking fees they go into the general fund so technically they do offset the um snowplow removal it it doesn't necessarily go directly into the buildings and grounds budget but it's collected goes into the general fund and offsets expenses I think I I know for myself I was
126thinking that with breed's limited funds that he had to do the plowing the I knew he had replace the doors replace the roofs if a window gets broken it all comes out of ltfm money and I guess I thought plowing was included in that so I'm happy to hear it comes out of the general fund still costing us the same amount of money it's just it's hard to maintain these buildings with the position that he's been put in after what's happened past just an FY on that thank you on that and then the enrollment report uh we are up nine from last month and the fiveyear average of comparing month to month is down 15 so that's a positive just wanted to share that on that this adms are students so the 10 two column
127is uh student count cool yeah so how do we get paid from the state I mean I know okay it's okay one is we're trying to measure the the social impact of students in students out buts and seats sort of thing the other one is funding because they're they don't exactly correlate but for all intents and purposes they do so the light blue column is that's what we get paid yes that's the budget that's what's in the that's what budgeted right yep what what's the community service fund uh that's everything to do with our um summer programs uh classes basically anything an Marie or director anything Community ad you got it so does this include what we take in this is only the expense side do you want to see revenues that wouldn't bother me
128that's I can work on something I mean be nice to know Yep this was created um we had several years ago a standard and pores um review and they were surprised that we didn't give any type of report to the school board and pre my previous District we did as well so I kind of mimicked what was given at the previous District so we can change it modify it well we can talk about the finance comme yeah absolutely well thanks any other questions sir Marcy on the enrollment or financial thanks Marcy have a good night next up is the superintendent Report with a decidedly not Dr Han looking individual filling in tonight for superintendent that's not feeling well uh pleasure to be here I have just two things to share first and foremost Dr Han
129wishes to thank everyone who had anything to do with homecoming the the homecoming experience in town was nothing short of amazing so there's a couple of shout outs that just have to be made to to M Rusk and to Andrea Anderson at the high school and the work that they did in organizing it Jack Freeman Michelle freed Josh for I Brian stubs uh these are staff MERS who went Above and Beyond in making sure that this was a really positive and energetic experience not just for the kids but for the whole Community uh the sports boosters stepped up and made contributions hubard radio made contributions many others did as well from the parade to the game to the the whole enchilada um it was really just an amazing experience for all involved so thank you
130to [Applause] all the last thing that I have is an opportunity to share an acknowledgement uh as today is indigenous people's day on this day we honor the indigenous peoples of our land and recognize their history culture and ongoing contributions we gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on Whose ancestral homelands We Gather as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their home here today it's our hope that our acknowledgement today and ongoing educational activities Inspire our students families staff and Community to take action to learn about and to support our indigenous communities on behalf of branded Public Schools thank you thank you director Mara all right let's move along to our uh our director com comments uh once again I guess we're doing this alphabetical I'm up first um I have no additional
131commentary this evening I will turn it over to director bre um I think I'm just gonna um we we kind of this was in our agenda but we didn't really spend a lot of time talking about it so I just want people to be aware of the request for bid for the Building Trades house that is happening this fall um do people have access to this um this request for bid document is it in the agenda it's in the agenda it's in the agenda it's on the website which means anybody can get to it cont so the contract and all that stuff was out there as part of thec again we thought she was you can't get rid of me okay good so that will also be posted in the paper and then we're going
132to put it on Facebook it'll be post on the website okay we'll try to get it and if you guys know of any other avenues we'll try to get it out there as much as possible great yeah because I think the bids are open now and so it it's not open yet we'll get it posted in the newspaper and then there'll be official bid opening and then at the December board meeting you guys would approve who the winner was approve okay will they identify uh where they can pick up spec sheets or anything like that or how will they um on there is Brad Watson's contact info if they have question about the purchase and then uh Brian bardwell's contact is on there if they have questions about the house gotcha thanks Mar so I
133just wanted yeah I just wanted to bring attention to to that um possible offering that's through our district great that's good thanks Michelle uh next up is director Don or DJ all you um I was planning on talking about this anyways I whatever the deal is is that kids need to go to school and we need to get them to school and you know it's easy to point fingers at you know I'm doing it all the time about min Ina's scores and I think the brainer scores need to be better but people need to send their kids to school Those kids deserve it it's their only opportunity and the reason I'm on this board is because with all those opportunities there's so many people that I've worked with in my career that came from nothing
134and they're very successful and they're good people and they pay their taxes and they do what they're supposed to do and they keep their nose clean and without education I don't see how that's going to happen um I think it's time for you know I'm I'm I'm concerned about the country I'm concerned about our community and uh I don't know what difference it makes what I'm concerned about but I just like to see you know if you've got a brother sister kids cousins that aren't sending their kids to school maybe give them a little nudge um help them out maybe pick their kid up um I don't know I've talked to so many teachers before I got elected after I got elected I was talking a couple this weekend and you know when little first
135graders are missing 65 days of school and can't write their name hardly it's a problem and I don't know what a teacher is supposed to do about especially when they have 25 kids in their class it's a problem you know uh last thing I'll say but I think it's a a sign of the times I guess I'm going to say two more things is 40% of 28 year olds are living in their parents houses so you might want to kick them out make them start to work um and number two look what's happening in Israel so you know I I don't know what your thoughts are on that I know this there's a lot of me people in the world and Americans are running around worrying about all these weird things like there is serious
136issues going on in our world and we're so isolated because we're this country is so wealthy and so privileged you know I've mentioned it to a few of my friends I remember when we were kids everyone would come to our house CU we had the newest house and we had air conditioning like no one had air conditioning can you imagine someone not having air conditioning now that'd be inhumane so that's where we've gone and I guess that's only about about 40 years Randy but um you know think about it let's get these kids to school um and these principles I've talked to Heidi about this I'm sure she didn't mention it to you if you need help with the county I'd be more than happy to go sit down with them for you and uh
137they have a job to do and they can complain about their budget if they want but you know what these kids are more important than their budget and maybe they got to figure out a way to get it handled in my mind they need to help us get these kids to school so I'll quit thank you DJ uh director Heyman I was not going to say anything but I'm I I'm I'm not gonna say anything thank you Randy director spear I was not gonna say anything either but I'm Gingy back let the record note I didn't say anything I wasn't going to I'm what director doninger was speaking to because I think we've all probably had questions on the clarification that was brought about through the attendance policy and through the the the handbook work
138and I think it was good clarification and it wasn't meant to be punitive but it was to help parents understand that you know we're we're beholden to have those kids in school for you know the number of days that it's supposed to be and and legally bound to have them there and so having their partnership in that and helping clarify what those absences for are even for me as a parent was super useful to know what was excused unexcused and and how that's even looked at by the district so I'm uh I'm happy we made that clarification even if it's unpopular right now I think it'll be useful thank you director Ward I'm gonna say something no um I just want to also Echo superintendent hans's remarks about homecoming there were a lot of people
139as Mr mura said that really made homecoming unbelievable but I want to share with you just a couple com and also the whole homecoming experience from Pep Fest to dress up days where we also included elementary kids in the elementary schools and kind of raised it up and then to top it off with the with the the community choir concert that John Erikson and Brian stubs and many many many many people worked on was absolutely amazing absolutely amazing and um but the comments that I got from folks especially alumni especially from kids that I coached uh you know that were here for homecoming right it was this it's so great to have homecoming back and have the spirit of the Warriors back those two things are critical in recruiting kids and keeping kids and getting
140kids into school having the Warriors back and having the spirit back and it's kind of like if you build it they will come kind of deal or whatever in my opinion or we built it we we are we have built it and we got we got to get come and so anyhow I agree totally with that but anyhow homecoming was unbelievably great with a lot of people's work um so thank you for that as well um I also want to point out that region five um I've talked to Heidi about this and I've talked to uh Misty joke the Education Minnesota president Region 5 has $11,000 Innovative grants available to all Educators and what that is if you've got something in your classroom Educators or principes or educational staff that you think you know would
141be remarkable for these kids to keep our kids to retain our kids to get them back again or whatever here's an opportunity to apply for a grant through region five th000 bucks uh and I know that's not a lot but it's a start it's a start for something um and uh the the deadline date is not until February 28th um and I can give you more information on how to how to do that but it's also so as I said through Region 5 maybe do you know something about that sir I think it's the Innovative schools Grant yeah Innovative schools Grant yeah they're an um independent agency yeah so um I just want to make our Educators aware that this money is is is out there you know it's I heard Mr Mera say you
142know um there's some of this unused money well if it doesn't get applied for it goes away so we got a lot of great Educators and staff educational staff in the District hands down so there's some there's some money opportunities for you there get out there and get it thank you what the record not the Director award was within his three minute time limit absolutely board members qualify for the Innovation award I can get pretty Innovative all right uh all we have left is go over future meetings real quick October 9th of course tonight the meeting here at wesby in our in our glorious new facilities and I'm sure uh Mr Ericson's going to fill us all back in over here at some point make it all look good is that is that that's under
143discussion with the real superintendent okay don't me October 12th and 13th we have aasa training at sourcewell the 19th and 20th of October is obviously the uh what is still referred to as mea weekend even though it's em now really yeah um and then we have a policy committee meeting as I discussed earlier on October 25th that's at 12 o'clock here at the wesby building on November 6th is the bpfs board me bpsf board meeting November 9th Garfield veterans program at 1:15 November 10th there's a lot going on with the veterans programs at Riverside the high school Harrison and nisah and then our next regular board meeting is on November 13th 6 o'clock p.m. right in this very room with this fancy new ceiling um that I believe is our agenda for this evening motion
144second we have a motion to adjourn from director doninger with a second from director spear any discussion hearing none in favor say I I oppos