001foreign Board of Education to order we will start with roll call please Sarah sphere here John Warren here we have a quorum all right next up is the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance suicide of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one piece and justice for all thank you all right got a fairly lengthy agenda tonight so we'll just Dive Right In with recognitions director Ward if you'd start us off with the first bullet point please very good thank you congratulations to the uh [Music] 2023 454 2023 graduates from Brainerd High School Brainerd Learning Center Lincoln education center and graduation equivalency diplomas GED congratulations to the following Brainerd students who completed in the OR compete completed in the final math Masters competition at sourceful the math Masters
002mathematics competition program challenges fourth fifth and sixth grade students to use critical thinking and problem solving skills in mathematics students compete as individuals and on teams in eight rounds of competition students academic effort and achievement are recognized in each competition element fact drill individual round and team competition students from Brainerd were Maya O'Neill Fern Schmidt Emily Smith Sam Porter Justice Anderson and Sam sunberg so as chair I assign myself this next one out of an act of Mercy for the rest of you congratulations to the following student athletes for signing letters of intent on May 17 2023 to participate in sports at their prospective colleges Emma balsley University of Wisconsin Stout for girls soccer Emily Bastian UMD Duluth for track Jonathan Benson University of South Dakota Sioux Falls for baseball Damien bentho CLC for football
003Bailey Claussen North Dakota state for dance Keegan Davidge Eastern Kentucky University for golf Brenna deason North Dakota state for track Hannah dritz University of Minnesota for cross-country running Gabby Eckman Saint Scholastica for girls soccer Wyatt gabrielson St Olaf University for baseball and Diving Marcelo Getty Central Lakes college for football Violet Goodwin University of Minnesota Duluth for track Isaac Hansen Saint Cloud State University baseball Gavin holdsel St Olaf University for track Max holmstrom University of Nebraska for golf Caitlin Kennedy Morehead State University for cross-country running Mason Keepers Saint Cloud State University for swimming calebling University of South Dakota for football Sophie Matson Central Lakes college softball Isabella Olson U.S Naval Academy for diving Abby Paulson U of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in La Crosse John paparic Bemidji State University for basketball Macy Peterson Post University for
004hockey Julia Rademacher University of Minnesota Duluth for cross country and track Dawson ringler University of Nebraska for golf Brian Sawyer Saint Benedict University La Crosse Kate Statham St Benedict University for volleyball and Cadence consumption for Saint Cloud University State University for swimming congratulations to Katie Jones Brainerd High School interpreter for being awarded The Shining Star Award for recognition and dedication to children who are deaf-blind and their families by the deafblind services of Minnesota congratulations to Izzy Olson and Dawson ringler for being State qualified qualifiers for the Minnesota State High School league golf tournament Dawson ringler was The Medalist for Section 8 AAA congratulations to the warrior girls track and field team for winning the 2023 Central Lakes Conference sportsmanship award 16 athletes qualified for the state meet girls state qualifiers Brenda decent 100 meters pole
005vault 4 by 100 meters Emily Bastian 800 meters and 4x8 Cora Clow high jump Violet Goodwin 100 meter hurdles Brook Wentz four by eight meter relay annalize Bard 4x8 meter relay Caitlin Kennedy 4x8 100 meter relay in Kate Statham for the 4 by 100 meter relay along with Molly Higley Ava lonely Ava lonely for 4x100 and boys state qualifiers Brandon Stark for 400 meters and 800 meters and for the 4 by 200 Dylan gross shot put Isaac Malay 4 by 200 meter relay or 4 by 200 yep relay Dylan McLaughlin four by 200 meter relay Charlie Bakula for the relay and Joe Smith full vault we'll go around the horn starting with you again director Ward congratulations to Rob Ryder and Ashley Rutman they were recognized as a Section 8 AAA head track coaches of
006the year congratulations to the Brainerd High School super mileage club they took a second place in the Super Sport division at the state meet which was held at BIR they set a new Brainerd High School record with a run of 430 miles per gallon congratulations to the warrior girls softball team for being the CLC champions congratulations to the Nisswa May student character Award winners Renee Lam campus McKenzie norgard Sadie Smith Francesca mace Otis maust islamay koloski Briny Dufour Finley Peterson Sabina Gish Simonson Marlena Yuri Alexis Olson Madeline Smith raelyn Isle Maverick Robertson Ethan Johnson Corbin Martinez Landon waitlich Candace teston Kyle schweitz Ziva Bethke Emilia sandvig nevae Romer Stella lash Walker Pierce and Brynn Ulrich congratulations to the warrior track and field teams girls team finished 10th place with 28 points and boys team finished
00725th place with 12 points the state Place winners were Brenna deason pole vault 11 feet 9 inches third place School record Brenna deason 100-yard dash uh 1201 fifth place School record Kate Statham AV Loney Molly Hagley Brenna deason 4x100 relay 48 78 third place second place honor roll Brook wins Annelise Baird Caitlin Kennedy Emily Bastian 4 by 800 relay nine minutes 37.85 seconds or no well whatever it was nine minutes yeah 37.85 Seventh Place Brandon start 400 meter dash 5010 8th Place um Dylan Groll shot put 57 8.5 second place Cora klau high jump five feet two inches sixth place advancing to the finals on Saturday are Brandon Stark 400 meter dash 49.33 prelims Brenna deason 100 meter dash 12.36 prelims Kate Statham 4x100 really relay 48.94 prelims third place honor roll Brenna deason pole
008vault and Brooke Wentz Annelise Baird Caitlin Kennedy and Emily Bastian 4 by 800 relay in addition Brandon Stark 800 meter run in one minute 58 seconds 13th Place Seventh Place honor roll Joe Smith pole vault 11 feet 6 inches 16th Place the 4 by 200 meter relay with a time of 1 minute 29.9 seconds 12th Place Violet Goodwin 100 meter hurdles 16.89 and 15th Place and Emily Bastion 800 meter run in two minutes 18 seconds 0.67 15th Place very good thank you that's a lot now we get the summer off from a lot of this Summer Long too great great all right next up uh public input and I have been remiss over the last few meetings of reading this statement before we enter into public comments so let me go ahead and and read
009this out loud a member of the public can address the board during this time comments will be limited to three minutes complaints or allegations against students or any employees of the district may not be discussed due to data privacy complaints or allegations must be submitted in writing to superintendent Han the Board of Education nor the superintendent will converse with guests or address the topics discussed during public comment Hey Kevin yes we need to approve the agenda we jumped right to the recognitions without the approval of the agenda motion what second as amended as amended yeah we skip that I'm sorry okay all in favor of approving the agenda post safe sign motion carries okay now on to public comments so our first uh individual for public comment Mark Olson please father God I ask you
010to give these people eyes to hear and ears to ears to hear and eyes to see in Jesus name I'm Mark Olson I want to give you some information tonight providing sexually explicit material to Children is a criminal violation of Minnesota state statute I make that statement of fact because they're sexually explicit material of bookshelves at Forest View Middle School State Statute 609.352 includes this header which is entirely capitalized solicitation of children to engage in sexual conduct communication of sexually explicit materials to children this is a portion of the relevant subdivision of 609. Distributing any material language or communication including photographic or video image that relates to or describes sexual conduct to child to children let me repeat that Distributing any material that relates to or describes sexual conduct to a child there is one
011huge problem though let's say you have two copies of the same sexually explicit book in Forest View Middle School and the uh and another identical book is from me I would be charged with a crime for providing the book to my teenage neighbor but the same teenage neighbor could check the book out of the Middle School Library without any consequences whatsoever for the district the reason is clear why there is a criminal State Statute making it illegal for sexual material to children because providing material to Children is wrong No Child Benefits from having sexually explicit material in the school district libraries in the public education system is once again deceiving its stakeholders the taxpayers through some obscure legislative manipulation the only difference between sexually explicit material allowed in one instance but not the other is
012simply the physical location a dental office a bike store a beauty shop etc etc all would be charged with a crime if they provided sexually explicit materials where children could read it but not the school library we can do better folks furthermore your own policy provides a mandated reporting Complaint Form when sexually explicit material is provided to children at your own policy you passed four one four point one thank you thank you thank you thank you [Applause] next we have Gail Holmes I believe hi hi my name is Gail Holmes and I will read from two different books from the Forest View Middle School library the first book is called Kite Runner it describes a young afghanist boy being brutally raped by three others page 75 Hassan lay with his chest pinned to the ground
013Kamal and Wally each group to arm twisted and bent at the elbow so that as a Hassan's hands were pressed his back Asif was standing over them the heel of his snow boots crushing the back of Hassan's neck oh I want you weaklings to do is hold them down can you manage that Wally and Kamal nodded they looked relieved Asif knelt behind his son put his hands on Hassan's hips lifted his bare buttocks he kept one hand on Hassan's back and undid his own belt buckle with his free hand he unzipped his jeans dropped his underwear he positioned himself behind Hassan Hassan didn't struggle didn't even whimpered he moved his head slightly and I caught a glimpse of his face saw the resignation in it it was a look I had seen before it was
014the look of the Lamb I stopped watching turning away from the alley something warm was running down my wrist I blinked so I was still biting down on my fist hard enough to draw blood from the knuckles I realized something else I was weeping from just around the corner I could hear asef's quick rhythmic grunts the following is from the book what girls are made of by Alina Arnold page 57. I go down on my knees like the guy on the bridge except instead of tightening a harness I'm unfastening his pants I pull him out of his underwear and he's soft in my hand I don't look up at his face before I open my mouth and pull him into it and I pull and I suck until he grows hard and he makes sounds
015that means he likes it and I keep going and going and he's when he says I'm going to come I don't pull away the jet of him is warm and salty and tastes like thickened sweat he breathes hard and his hands are tight fists at his eyes thank you next is Doug Kern yeah so uh so I don't ramble it I got it written down here you all know that School District employees as a board of directors that you are mandated legally to report and and you're required to report whenever a child's provider would sexually explicit material uh two months ago in the the board meeting here I read the policies and that were approved the msba 414 which requires you to report if and when a child has provided been provided with sexual explicit
016material for instance if you saw a child a student in the school with the Penthouse Magazine you'd be required to fill out a mandated reporter form makes sense doesn't it not only does the state statute 609.352 legally prohibit the school district from providing sexual explicit material to your children your own policy 414 does as well here's what's relevant the text from msba 414 item l sexual abuse means the subjection of a child by a person responsible for the child's Care by a person who said who has a significant relationship to the child as defined in Minnesota statute 609.341 subdivision 15. you know by a person that's in current or recent position of authorities such as defined in Minnesota statutes 609 3.341 subdivision 10. to any act which constitutes a violation of Minnesota statutes prohibiting criminal
017sexual conduct Sussex include sexual penetration sexual contact solicitation of children to engage in sexual contact conduct and communication of sexuality sexually explicit materials to children I can read that again and communication of sexually explicit materials to children now that you now you may say that you have an exemption from Criminal statutes such as 609.341 and you may even defend the the exemption and how it came to be as devious as it is but you cannot exempt yourselves from carrying out what your own official policies State these are policies which you committed to you all committed to that before taxpayers the taxpayering parents of this District so you're on notice to remove all sexual explosive materials from the School District Libraries and classrooms thank you thank you Doug [Applause] I believe I'm getting this right Sherry
018wiltse is up next I have that right welcome sure good evening my name is Sherry wiltsey I'm a retired teacher from the Brainerd School District I taught here 21 years I taught eighth and ninth grade I am going to read from a book called what girls are made of by Elena Arnold and these are expert excerpts page 19 I laid a towel on the sheet in case I bled and then I watched Seth roll the condom over his penis and I rested my head on it my pillow and I watched his hands push into the Flesh of My thighs spreading them apart and I watched him maneuver his latex wrapped erection as he pushed and tried to get inside page 20. if Seth wants to have sex and I'm on my period I'm the one
019to suggest that I give him a head it's the way his fingers look glazed like donuts after they have been made been inside of me this is on page 34. Seth thrusts forward into the bed and between my legs and against the thin barrier that separates us my thong gets twisted as us takes it off and I hear it rip when he grows impatient and Yanks too hard I shouldn't care but I do because the thong is brand new and it matches the bra and Lace can't be sewn back together but I don't say anything and then Seth rises above me like a wave and smiles I smile back and then he pushes into me hard and fast and it hurts and feels good all mixed together he puts one hand on my stomach to
020hold me still he likes it best he says because when I don't move a lot when I let him be in charge and I know too that he likes to feel himself inside of me under his hand the back and forth and fourth motion of it it's clear from his face when he is close and I brace myself for a second for the way he usually pulls out roughly right at the end he's for us again and again hard into the center of me and I want to like it but I sort of don't and I feel him spasm and spasm and he makes a sound that would be funny in different circumstances before he is still he says collapsing against me next we have Tony Bauer good evening tonight we've all heard about District
021policies and state statutes we've also heard quotations from actual library books from the good people who have stood here before you expressing their concern and outrage over what is being made available to our children in Forest View Middle School Middle School grades five through eight obviously all students well under 18 years of age we can talk about policies and statutes all night long but everyone in public education knows exactly what is going on and exactly why it's going on one thing I know is it causes me to wonder how many copies of the Bible are in Forest View library or in the entire school district for that matter our children are being used as disposable sacrificial instruments deployed in order to transform America by way of divisive indoctrination and cruel manipulation this makes all of
022you complicit in that ungodly endeavor it's evident that public education has become submerged and perverted to the point where the ones we care about the most have become its most numerous victims tonight I urge you to not attempt the often repeated tactic of portraying this group of concerned citizens as wanting to quote unquote banned books or trample the First Amendment either as many will be tempted to do in reality what we want to do is restrict children who would be legally protected by criminal Statute in any other public arena for being exposed to pornography or given access to pornography after all at the May 8th school board meeting Mr Boyles expressed his concern for school bus drivers and his opposition to them being exposed to quote-unquote profanity-laced tirades don't we owe the children of this
023District the same level of concern is morally reprehensible for you and people throughout public education including in this District to feign concern for children's mental stability when you knowingly facilitate and Foster an atmosphere which would be illegal anywhere else that in truth creates feeds and increases mental instability in children by exposing them to various physical and psychological trauma such as gender dysphoria risk of early pregnancy possible body mutilation and potentially deadly venereal diseases tonight through Vivid examples you have all been made aware of your public legal and moral failures regarding this issue we pray that you will make the necessary changes required of moral human beings to return ISD 181 to the status of the legitimate traditional educational showplace in the meantime you have all been called out publicly tonight our minimum expectation is that
024you will immediately comply with the legal requirements required of any other public institution called for by Minnesota laws and your own District policy your own policy for goodness sakes ladies and gentlemen of the school board our children have been placed in positions of great risk and we demand that this practice stop now the pretending is over we see through you thank you [Applause] [Music] and do I have this right is it Arthur foreign good evening I'm a man of philosophy it's one of my passions with a few other night John when you're dealing with philosophy one of the most important things is the definition of words hopefully you would agree I know you normally I like to have dialogues and we can't do that tonight I understand if you've got questions for me it's arthurlordbach
025gmail.com or 829-4664 we'd love to hear from you okay so if I ask Ed you what the definition of integrity was how would you answer me okay one of the most frequent answers is doing what's right when nobody's watching okay um there's a gentleman Stephen Carter he's a black lawyer he wrote several books but his one book deals with Integrity okay he has three items to have integrity one is knowing what's ethical but the question is what's your foundation of Ethics based upon and I'm just going to give you a few things here um who determines what's ethical if man is the Arbiter of Ethics which man is it Hitler or Mother Teresa for its man then there are no objective objective ethical code to follow C.S Lewis wrote everybody knows what's right but nobody
026does it Neil Postman said we live in a society where a lot of people are ethical egoists with big word for ethical terms if you're in the philosophy they pretend to act ethical to your face but behind your back they will do anything that is to their advantage they're practicing survival the fittest for Christopher Hitchens we leave in a hedonistic Society where what is ethical is what brings you the most pleasure George Will said there is nothing so vulgar left in our experience for which we cannot transport some Professor from somewhere to justify it Victor Frankl the Survivor of the concentration camps wrote I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz were ultimately prepared not by some Nazi Ministry but in the lecture Halls of nihilistic scientists and professors this is practicing evolutionary
027ethics put into practice what you teach affects people atheist Richard Dawkins in his book River out of Eden wrote there is nothing right or wrong when he was asked what Hitler did was wrong he said he could not call it wrong even though he didn't like it okay that's his ethical Theory that's that there is nothing right or wrong and we could talk about that more if we have if we could talk uh Bonhoeffer said the biggest error that man could make was thinking that he could decide what's right and wrong number two of Mr Carter was speaking up for what's right mature three minutes is concluded thank you well my goodness thank you very much I want to talk I could go for three hours without a problem okay some of us up here
028feel your pain okay but unfortunately for medical reasons I'm going to leave so if you want to get the rest give me a call thank you [Applause] and our final public comment for this evening Lori Shepard thank you my name is Lori Shepard I have three grandchildren in your District and I came to this board about a year ago and I asked for some information on what was being taught in the school it was not specific to sexuality I was not talked to by anybody on the board nobody followed up to find out what I needed I had asked that night tell me someone who will help me look at the books that these kids are being titled nothing happened today I was told that someone might be here with some actual information on what
029it's being told I have heard some of that it is a verbal porn and you and you and you and you are providing that for our children I certainly hope someone will get a hold of me this time and at least help me find out what you're teaching our children thank you [Applause] thank you okay onward and forward to the approval of the minutes from the prior meeting well let's hang on a second I'd like to make a motion that we put this on our next agenda for next month something needs to be done this is I'm shocked I'm sure that there's plenty of teachers and principals and everybody else in here that are shocked too and I don't know what I need to do that but I think we should at least make I
030think we should at least dig in and figure out what the hell's going on here because we don't need that crap I mean is this stuff accessible to fifth graders do we know that yeah I can say a few things but I don't know if this is part of this I don't know it's not permitted under our current thing um what I would say director is online so just so the public is aware we have a board retreat coming up this Friday where the entire school board will be together to discuss topics that don't come up in the normal course of the board business that you see here on these meetings these meetings are more tightly regulated by open meeting law Robert's Rules of Order and other functions of a business meeting that's related to
031a school board so it creates constraints some are self-imposed some are statutory um all of which are probably not best in the least initially discussed in this venue but rather in that kind of a venue what I can guarantee you is we will have this on our discussion board for Friday and then from there if we choose to bring it forward to the to the meeting the next board meeting we certainly can I think it's fair to say that several of us have questions well my understanding of Robert's Rules is is that if someone would second this then we could just guarantee it be on the agenda that is also correct I think that would be a good look for all these folks that came out today so can we just do that with somebody
032give me a second thank you all right so we have a motion from director Don layer with a second from director Brecken add the topic of the specific library books that were mentioned in public comment this evening on the July board meeting agenda thank you did I state that correctly director I think so great all right so all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed same sign all right I need to uh I apologize I didn't catch the verbals um so did we get do we get an eye okay so Janet can you record that motion pass motion carries this will be added to the July board meeting as a presentation and perhaps action item thanks thanks [Applause] okay now we're on to the approval of the meeting minutes from May
0338th I'll make a motion to approve second okay we have a motion by director Spirit the second by director dondlinger all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed same sign motion carries okay next up we have the consent calendar um with several line items as you can see below here I don't know if all of you had time to adequately review the board packet in case you have any questions specifically on substitute rates or healthiest few these came up through committees discussion on this I wasn't able to access the SRO agreements is there anything [Music] that we need to be more specifically aware of so I guess the short answer from my perspective is that these have been greatly upgraded from the last time that we renewed with both the City of
034Baxter for the Forest View SRO and the City of Brainerd for the Brainerd High School SRO uh this uh director donallinger and I got a good look at these the other day in the finance committee one I have some minor reservations about the Brainerd contract it doesn't have the same language the Baxter one does namely there's a section in there where it doesn't the Baxter contract has a has a phrase in there that says that the district has a representative that will be part of the interview process for an SRO the Brainerd contract doesn't have that but I don't think that would preclude us from voting on it tonight I think it's if we if we forced it back what would happen is it would have to go back to the Brainerd city council back
035to their City attorney and then we might be running up against you know being able to have a contract in place for an SRO for the beginning of the school year as I understand it okay so um my own recommendation based on having I've done a ton of research on this that I can brief you on later but I'm very comfortable with the contracts as presented anything you would add DJ no I think I think your points were valid and I think next time we do this we'll we'll probably get ahead of it and and change them up a little bit but at the last minute we needed to probably approve these and they look good to me too so I don't have any questions and they're way better the Brainerd one in particular is
036way better than what we had two years ago the one two years ago looked like two guys drew it on a napkin at ships so some of those are the best ones you know yeah sold a couple cars that way Michelle sure um the healthiest view just to kind of um but I don't think that we presented this last time when we were talking about the health insurance premiums and everything we talked about the last board meeting so this is like a a companion program that replaces a different one we call a had called included health or it was called Ground rounds before that and this um for the same money we were paying for the included Health this one is providing the same service which is essentially a a second opinion service for people
037that go to a healthcare provider and want to get a second opinion but it also expands Way Beyond that provides a number of different Telehealth type resources that you can get to a lot faster like you can get a dermatologist appointment in like two weeks where if you try to get a dermatologist appointment around here I don't know if anybody's tried it can take up to two to three months Mental Health Resources are available through teledoc Services it expanded so in the benefits committee we determined that this was a much better use of those dollars we felt like it would be more expansively used by staff than the the included Health um the included Health when it was used was very beneficial but we only had I think was it 17 or 27 staff or
038something that used it it wasn't very highly it wasn't very high we anticipate a much greater rollout support with this program to get higher adoption levels and get people to understand the value of it not just to The District in in terms of lower claims but in terms of the individuals getting better access to more diverse types of health care support mental health care support and possibly even be able to save for those that are in the HSA enabled plan that will enable them because this service doesn't count it's not built it's just a it's an included service so if they use that instead of a doctor visit they aren't triggering any kind of copay or HSA withdrawal or anything like that so similar to the old employees so how long's the commitment for one
039year we decided we would evaluate it for one year and then we would re-up if we liked it how much is it but 110 Grand I think how much 126. thank you 20 people using the last one yeah and we were paying 124 for that or something right so what's the plan to get some people so we have a commitment from our broker uh to come in and do robust rollout support at the beginning of the school year to really highlight the availability and the big and then so they've committed to come up physically come up and do some rah-rah sessions to try to get people kind of excited about it and get more utilization well let's make sure and I don't know Angie is this your deal are you coming to charge this so
040let's make sure that either we see our claims stay flat or our claims go down or a huge success with this or let's not waste the money you know what I mean it seems like a good deal you know they're not going to charge anybody anything to call in so I don't know why it wouldn't be a good thing or if it could keep our costs down you know if you go through these slides which I think you'll have you see like with an emergency room business 1200 bucks this is zero so in theory this should knock down our claims and if it does then it's a terrific thing if it does it and we're just wasting money for the fun of it then I think that somehow next year we should when you come
041with this you should show us what happened yeah so our benefits committee meets roughly quarterly um so we that was a takeaway um the first thing that we did in that meeting was to um like Ryan was there I don't think anybody else in this room was there other than Angie and Marcy um but we had representatives from every um unit in in the school Staffing thing and there was there was a lot of excitement about the potential of it it looks pretty cool Mr chair uh yeah previous board meetings we've talked about trying to promote educate and encourage um staff to participate in a wellness program and this is this is the lead to that and I know that uh I think uh all the as you said all the major all the uh
042labor units have also uh said that they would participate and encourage their membership to participate in this as well that's correct I mean to director donlinger's point I'd like to see some more organization around that idea you know just so I'm execute on it yeah so you know I'm gonna encourage our uh Administration along with our labor organizations to work together on this and to promote it as a unit all of us together and you know 100 and that way we will likely you know be able to uh save save so I mean if it's I could speak for the private sector like if we had had access to this in in where I've worked for the last various places for the last 25 years I've been all over this it's an extremely good benefit
043it is it is you just have to remember that and I'm not lecturing maybe I am I'm sorry if I am is these things don't just take care of themselves right so unless we continually put this in front of everybody it's like wow that's a great idea and then three months from now when you're sick you forgot all about it and you don't even have a login because you never signed up for it and it's like I'm just going to the doctor you know we would have this last year when everybody was having extreme difficulty getting access to Mental Health Resources here the weight is uh Angie keep me honest I don't know if you have that stat in front of you but it's like five to seven days or something yeah you know where
044I mean you know in trying to find a healthcare a mental health care practitioner in this town could be measured in months even now yeah so I wanted to fix my neck can I get a login for this damn thing I've been trying for 25 years I can fix it for you in the parking lot right now I'm watching a lot of effort put into that baby Mr chair also can I add another couple things please on the consent calendar yep um staff at staff um changes um ads or deletes I look through that whole list or whatever and I want to read it read it reiterate again something that I had said earlier in a previous school board meeting is you know as we have uh now looked at the overall picture for next
045year's Staffing that that the uh non tenured people um that are qualified to fill a position and um are quality people that we encourage them to come back and serve us so I want I just want to make that point again um and uh stress it again the last thing I want to say is and I talked to I think I don't remember was Janet or who who it was but you know I looked at the gifts and um I gotta put my glasses that we get each month that's reported to us and you know it's always significant to me and I asked you know are we sending thank you notes I thank you letters and uh superintendent Han and and Janet I I have both told me that um they send letters and thank
046yous to uh everybody that part everybody that donates to us and I and I thank you for that because that's important and thank you to the folks that have been uh giving us gifts and grants that it truly helps and then director Ward and I sit on the committee that uh brought forward the substitute the new substitute rates that you see in here um maybe I don't want to put you on the spot John but you want to say anything about that I mean I'll I'll start by saying we feel like we we did some really good work there to get our substitute rates up to where uh we actually can get people we were way under some of the surrounding school districts and what we were paying or at least significantly enough that we
047were having real struggle so we feel like this is a step in the right direction to allow us to to better fill those substitute rules those are extremely important roles yeah you know opinion because as the need has risen for substitutes and we're um not as competitive with the substitute pay you know um that transfers in my opinion to the uh perhaps um some of the um I don't want to say quality but but maybe experienced uh people coming here rather than going somewhere else okay so I I'm really excited about um and not only not only Educators but you know we also talked about education assistance and you know all of the all of the uh labor unions so I'm excited that uh it's going to go forward it's going to be better going
048forward so thanks John yep we appreciate it we'll be more competitive is what you're saying right yep maybe a motion sounds good second all right we have a motion from director dondalinger and a second from director Ward to approve the consent calendar as presented any further discussion hearing none all in favor please say hi hi opposed same sign motion carries moving on to new business our first action item tonight is the approval of the administration or recommendation issue 23 24 contract of the following certified staff members resulting in the granting of tenure Dr Hunt so the following staff members have completed three successful years of teaching as well as completing their teacher development and evaluation process so I recommend the following teachers Michelle Anderson Riley Atkinson Katrina Atkinson Pamela klontz Emily creelman Sarah Dano Tiffany
049gilb Gracie grauman Jeremiah Johnson Megan Johnson Jennifer Larson Jason Leonard Kristen Moss Gotti Jessica rindall brenarono Daniel Ryan Taylor Salisbury Kira schlomer Deborah Schluter Jesse Shepard Melissa Shepard Amy Strother Sandra talges and Erica tweet for tenure with Brainerd Public Schools this is a big deal in a teacher's career and they have demonstrated high quality teaching thank you Dr Hunt I'll make a motion that we approve a second okay we have a motion by director Brecken with a second by director spear to approve the tenure for the above teachers any further discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye oppose same sign motion carries all right now we're going to roll into some presentations starting with Beth Cooper on our annual acomp report people good evening my name is Beth Cooper
050I'm the Acom coordinator here for Brainerd Public Schools this presentation I'm going to give you some information and then at the end we'll be requesting approval for continuation of the acomp program for the 23-24 school year acomp is an alternative teacher professional pay system we use it as a professional learning um structure thank you I thank you Tim and with a pay for performance component so there's pay with it but really it is for improving our instructional skills giving teachers the opportunity to work together to do that we really want to work on increasing student achievement reward our teachers for high quality teaching and then ensure that all of our students are learning this is an agreement between the um the Education Minnesota Brainerd membership so in early spring usually we have a presentation that
051we give to them and they have to vote 60 of our EMB membership has to vote that we agreed to participate in this then it comes to you the school board in June where you have in the past given um approval for that and then after that it goes to the Department of Ed in goes to the state so it's a partnership between the three the acomp team the acomp program is overseen by the aclt or a comp leadership team this governing body is made up of three District administrators and three teachers our teachers serve a three-year term admin reps are appointed we meet monthly for those there are four state required components I'm going to talk a little bit about I'm just going to name them now and then we're going to talk about
052what those look like in our practice here in Brainerd so there's a teacher evaluation component this is our peer coaching and mentoring model we have a job embedded professional development that's our professional learning communities otherwise known as plc's we like our an acronyms here the third piece is performance pay and alternative salary schedules so for different positions teachers are paid stipends for this also they are paid a stipend for participating and then there are opportunities for teachers to participate in career ladder positions and take some leadership within the schools with their colleagues in our practice what this looks like is number one the teacher evaluation in the peer coaching and mentoring every single certified staff member who's not an administrator is considered a teacher in this language and we're assigned a peer coach or a
053mentor you undergo two or three conferences or observation Cycles over the course of that time with their coach the coaches are trained to observe the teachers and give data and look for certain things we use a Danielson rubric for that when teachers complete this and do their observations the augmentation for that is 1200 1260 so it's a significant among amount of money but it also represents that we believe that teachers coaching teachers and talking to another person solving problems within their classroom are going to be something that can really improve instructional practices so who gets the 1260 the teacher does the teachers that go to the training the teachers pleats all of us Vehicles so if I come 260 dollars with my coach the coaches are paid but that gets that's down the line here
054of course yeah um so then the second piece is the professional learning communities so um our all teachers are assigned to a professional Learning Community or PLC they meet with that group of people for 45 minutes weekly or 90 minutes bi-weekly they use the the point is to be working with teachers who you work closely with to work on how can we improve our instruction what can we do for the with for this specific group of students and this represents 30 percent of the acomp augmentation which is 630 dollars so all teachers who choose to participate and attend their PLC meetings receive the 630 dollars the third component is the site level goal so in August there's a continuous Improvement uh meeting Retreat and there's a goal set and if your team or if you're
055building meets that goal so a force viewer to meet their goal for this year usually this is based on MCA data is always based on MCA data unless it's um early childhood then in like September when NCAA results are released finally then those that building everybody there would receive that 210 dollars of compensation so the total possible augmentation for participants is twenty one hundred dollars is participation voluntary it is it is okay but if they get the whole school building then everybody gets it whether they were in the program or not if you choose not to participate in acomp you do not get it okay and this is primarily paid for out of the Learning and Development bucket this is paid for out of a combination when you when you approve the agreement you're actually
056approving a local Levy that is also tied to funding that's come specifically from mde so it's not District staff development dollars it's it's a different categorical use of complicated of course I agree with you on this one this is money that comes from the state and by your approval a local Levy as well I have a slide coming up too that might explain it and do you have a slide that tells the percentage of uh staff that participate we're we're at 99 it's it's very very low okay um the number that don't participate it's tied pretty closely with the teacher development and evaluation plan as well um so it doesn't do people a lot of their there are two components there one is participation in plc's you really have one of two choices you can
057either attend and get paid or attend and not get paid because it's a structure that we believe in this is what we do administratively so it's in your interest too obviously to have them get paid for participation in that uh in terms of the the other half of that which just has gave to my mind prompt me uh TD oh TD the observation cycles that are here in the mentoring is intended to be the dress rehearsal for the observations when your administrator comes in so it's the formative assessments okay that you do and the practice you do so that when your administrator comes to evaluate you you're ready for it you know what to do thank you all right the the fourth and final piece is the career ladder position so when we think about
058um we've got some people who are teacher leaders who are training other teachers so we have a PLC leader trainer we have peer coach trainers um we have a cultural cultural competency and implicit bias trainers um those are the folks who have kind of a training position and then there's some other roles like the peer coaching and mentoring mentors and lit coaches we have 137 coaches slash mentors in our district so that's a pretty good number um for eight teachers then is that probably close one room for ten ten four we try to keep it under five oh do you yeah yeah 475-ish who's out there is for education 1200 employees total um I'll have this down by next year I promise it'll change story our curriculum leaders are folks who work on the curriculum
059so they're gonna with their team facilitate that process of working on on curriculum when we have time for that or when that's built into our days um and then we also have some PLC leaders so those groups that are meeting weekly those leaders those meetings are facilitated by a trained leader so all of these folks receive training um and then a stipend on top of the 1260 dollars that they would get for participating and doing their own peer coaching and and those pieces so so are the leaders actually Educators teachers whatever you want yeah they're just just doing this on the side yeah yeah comes in their own time during the day timesheet for eign work that we ask them to do some do not claim the timesheet oh cool what are the curriculum leaders
060so they'll write the curriculum they they do so when they they're constantly we're constantly in process of revising the work I mean the state will update maybe once every 10 years but we're always working on units and trying to make things better than they were before so they bleed that work with their teams they get some extra training and have some extra meetings throughout the year they meet four times a year and then they'll kind of they'll get an agenda and maybe think about what it is that their group wants to work on and then make a plan for how to implement that plan with their group so oftentimes teachers will know like you know what assessments maybe need some beefing up or what units aren't working as well as they should and that's they
061have time to work on those things frequently these are the teachers you see coming before the district advisory committee to present curriculum that they've developed so and Dak does the approval to recommend curriculum to you that's the teacher leaders who facilitated that process with the teaching and learning Department developed it DAC reviews it makes a recommendation to you and then you make the final decision and you'll have two chances tonight where do they go for the Danielson training who teaches that we do it in-house ourselves it's just like a video thing or like a it's the initial training is three days 18 hours I see that with one of our teachers who's been doing it for a while um and then we have that after you've done that initially it's a two-hour refresher every summer
062that teachers have what is it what is Danielson training um leaders in in education and she has a rubric that she's used and adapted to different areas so there's like a general education version and a special ed version and um you guys are pulling it up Tim what's that she's the one you picked I'm sure there's other trainers out there she's the one that you guys use yeah got it the two most common are Charlotte Anderson the other one is Robert Marzano and I've never heard either one of them so I don't know why I'm asking if you want books I don't want any books um the next slide is a comp is funded um we've it's approved for 260 dollars per student so our funding changes as our pop enrollment changes um so we
063get 169 in state aid and then 91 dollars per student in board approved Levy each year what that supports is the teacher stipend so for participation and then also for those leadership stipends and some of that hourly pay the leadership training for teachers so all of our peer coaches and mentors like I said peer PLC leaders curriculum leaders and all of our trainers attend training and have have been trained and will be trained this summer again salaries so it does support salaries for our Elementary staff development and curriculum specialist our literacy and social studies coordinator and also our Acom coordinator and then it also supports k-4 literacy testing at this time so this is the budget that we're looking at for next year so our funding we have some estimated carryover this year um that
064we're going to be bringing into next year and then our funding which is based on our October 1 enrollment from this past year is 1 million six hundred twenty four thousand four hundred eighty dollars so we have one million 795 795 953 to work with this year so you can see how it was allocated over the different areas um you might note too that it is a little bit more than what is in the proposed budget but oftentimes we allocate or we'll plan for more in some areas than in to give ourselves a little bit of breathing room so we're pretty generous sometimes with how we allocate in certain areas so we're within five percent which is supposed to be 51 pays 171 000 on the state gives us a million six is that right
065nope uh no not the carryover funding that's the carryover that's the carryover so we've been carrying a balance for the last couple of years it's nice it's dwindling um for other reasons like press going up that's the estimated Revenue I guess I'm confused that's the carryover yeah and then the funding the million six is the state and October will be around 1 million six twenty four we won't know until October 1 but that's our best guess working with the business office we've saved 171 out of three current expenses you're good to go for next year but we've got us we're probably yeah we're good to go for next year we believe that all budgets are a function of assumptions and the assumptions can change recommendations heading into next year is really for professional learning for
066leaders and staff on how to leverage Acom structures for the multi-tiered systems of support mtss that's something that our District's been working on and this is the first layer of that work in those professional learning communities and teachers working with teachers we're going to going to continue developing instructional practices meeting the needs of most students within the general education classroom and then provide structures and tools for constructive discussions around data and instructional practices any other questions don't be looking at me I'm done how many years does the district participate in an Acom since 2006 and seven so so I take it you guys think there's good results with it I think we're seeing it we're seeing like good results like it makes sense plan makes sense I do think there's some opportunities to tweak some
067pieces particularly in the peer coaching model and in the PLC model around being more specific more targeted in the conversations and the work that they do that's why you see the mtss work that we're bringing forward our intent there is that we're going to give the plcs more resources of learning on how do you look at student performance data and how do you make adjustments in instructional practice based on that data that's always been the intent it's always been something we've been growing at since we started and now we believe that we've got better resources to do well hop to it Mr chair respect the word um peer coaching um all of that is very very important we know that understand that and it transfers into our students lives as well and students class and
068the Educators classrooms I'm interested in asking about mentorships and a comp um tell me about can you share with that a little bit more about because I remember um back when I was we had a huge mentorship program and I'm not sure that it's how's it going I don't think we have the same capability that we had back then and I think that has in my opinion has played a huge factor in retention and recruiting that's possible um it's expensive um so that is definitely a factor we have a mentorship program so all news hires are we receive a mentor um it is if they've been tenured in another District before they have one year of mentoring and then they go right into the peer coaching if they have not been tenured in in any
069District in Minnesota before then they receive two years of mentoring and then they go into the peer coaching model we try really hard to match them up with somebody who is in their building and or doing something very similar to what they do so that you know if I'm a special ed teacher teaching the emotional behavior disorder students then I would want to make sure that I would got paired with somebody who had a same or similar job and knew what that was really like and could help me along the way with that um so that's that's most of it um there are two trainings that take place in the first year there's one training that everybody attends the new teacher training in October in August it's really busy and and I think a lot
070of new hires kind of you know there's just so much new and they're getting ready for their classrooms so we get them together in October for a day um and do a little bit more training on some of the acomp things that they need to do and last year we were able to provide an opportunity for them to meet with you know so they met with some of the other teachers on special assignment who maybe work with literacy or elementary math or we had someone who was there to talk about Behavior some of the different areas that might possibly be things that would impact them and after a month they might have a better idea of things that they needed and then there's a second training in their second year so if they're a year
071B teacher that takes place in February and that's the cultural competency and implicit bias training let me Mr chair yeah let me ask it a different way is there room in a composite to in start investing more dollars towards a mentorship towards the Met towards more mentors in the district we would have to make a plan change would you look at that please we can I just asked that people remember that the agreement of the plan is a negotiated settlement between the three groups the EMB mde and the school board so every stakeholder is going to have a little slightly different take on that the way the budget is structured at the moment we would have to redirect budgets elements from one area to another there's not enough there 171 is carryover looks like a
072lot but the 1.7 million dollar budget it's not okay you may not make major structural change there certainly we're open to any conversation about improving the experience new teachers have because retention of new teachers is extremely important so is this mainly for new teachers is this kind of what this means just the management function is just the mentoring it's just the mentoring the the five for now four there used to be five pillars to this program the four pillars are designed to be comprehensive all across the board for teachers at every level their career you have peer coaches which is intended to tap the expertise of Veteran teachers for teachers who might be either early in their career or mid-career or late in career but need some help okay the career ladder positions are the
073opportunity to retain high quality veterans staff who may wish to remain in the district and but not pursue administrative roles so they get the opportunity to demonstrate leadership competencies Beyond whether regular classroom teacher might be able to show so it kind of keeps the job fresh that was new tough case in point would be Liz Cooper falling into that category looking at for the next school year and so this is those from us and it has goes to Education Minnesota it goes to it already went to Education Minnesota Brainerd and then solo to go to the state next okay yeah so any kind of adjustments we'd want to make to this that are of that kind of substance would be for next year yes there are deadlines of a calendar for submission to all of
074that that get communicated on and I'm assuming Ed Minnesota was supportive of Minnesota Brainerd was supportive of the plan yes they notified us of their support okay great Mr chair I'll move approval of the resolution for the acomp program for next year second thank you we have a motion from director Ward with a second by director Brecken to approve the resolution any further discussion hearing none this is a resolution therefore a roll call vote yes yes Don Moore yes Governor yes thank you Beth thank you do you want me to stand for our next presentation is world's best Workforce readwell by third grade I get to be Sideshow Bob a lot tonight one red suspenders I've never been Mr Booth will be talking about local literacy all right good evening my name is Taylor demuth
075I'm the elementary literacy and social studies coordinator tonight I will be presenting our local literacy plan read well by grade 3 data dyslexia data as well as an overview of our elementary literacy structures and an update on the work we are currently completing at the elementary level within literacy so to get us started read well by grade 3 that is part of the Minnesota state statute that requires districts to submit proficiency data for all students grades K through kindergarten through second grade with the goal of having all students reading at or above grade level by the end of grade three so the data submission includes our local literacy plan District reading proficiency data and dyslexia districts dyslexia screening data that I will share with you this evening as well okay the elements of our local
076literacy plan are outlined here on this slide I've attached the local literacy plan at the bottom of this that will give you more a more comprehensive view of all the things that are present within that literacy plan um foreign by grade three the data that we use for that these are the subtests that we have we have letter identification Concepts about print hearing and recording sounds and words Benchmark assessment system which is our text leveling data and then our star reading data which is given for students in grades two through four the next piece is the dyslexia screening data and that is each of the assessments that are given specifically aligned with the different indicators of Dyslexia which I will go through on the following sides and the assessments are listed here as well so
077then moving into the indicators of Dyslexia so as I stated we have assessments that are tied to each of the indicators in addition to that and I'll get to that later in my presentation we have for children that are identified with diff with specific indicators that are present we have specific interventions that we can do to support them multiple tiers is a multi-tiered support of um supports in place where we move from tier one to tier 2 and tier three using these indicators to help us know exactly what they are needing so for example the first one is poor phonemic awareness that understanding and ability to in here individual sounds and words and identify individual sounds of an assessment that aligns with this as well as progress monitoring and interventions as well the next piece
078is the decoding decoding is that letter sound relationship that translates a word from symbols to a unit of meaning poor encoding that's our spelling the that can be another component that can be difficult for children with dyslexia and also students that are have other reading difficulties as well all of these indicators can be present um poor orthographic recolor memory that's that when you think of orthographic awareness that's the knowledge of visual features of written language so those features of a letter spelling patterns in a word that can be very difficult and just remembering that certain specific order in helping them to read again that's something that if we identify in the assessments we can help to intervene so the next piece that moves us into our first I'll go through our readwell by grade three
079data and then I will move into our dyslexia screening data so um before I get into the data I think it's really important um I've been in this role this is my third year I've we've lived a lot with the pandemic with all of the things that have come um I think the the first thing that I want to start within my presentation is just the importance of noting that our students when I look at I'm giving you an end data point I'm giving you a made data point and I'm in the classrooms weekly um I have the opportunity to be in all of our elementary buildings and there is no doubt in my mind that we have the best teachers in front of our students we as we all know we've experienced the pandemic
080it's presented challenges um we've all experienced them and we've had to continue to respond to them and when I think about our teachers and I think about what they do day in and day out to they have they continue to rise the occasion to meet our children's needs not only academically but also behaviorally and emotionally and I think that's really really important when we look at these numbers so um to get into the readwell data the first piece we'll look at is letter identification this is an assessment we give in kindergarten typically it's on a diminished scale as kids Master it we're able to move on we have a district profession proficiency rate of 97 percent it's really important to note with that as well as I look at the data from we moved from
081a 91 to 92 percent proficiency rate from 20 to 21 and 21 to 22 to now a 97 proficiency rate which is substantial the next piece of data is the concepts about print we give this this is a kindergarten assessment and we have 92 percent proficiency as well um this when I looked at the data over time we've moved from an 84 to 85 percent proficiency rate to a 92 percent and when I think about looking at literacy data over time those these are early literacy assessments which are indicated indicative of building effective readers and writers over time with continued quality instruction so I think when I look at the data we saw versus the data we see today we are making up ground from what may have been learning loss over the pandemic the
082next piece of data is hearing recording sounds and words um this is a first grade assessment and we had 88 proficiency as well um the next one is the text leveling data and this is K4 so our kindergarten data is 73 percent first grade is 61 it's important to note with that first grade cohort they are um they're a large cohort because many of them did not go to kindergarten the year that they were slated to go with the pandemic also many of these children did not have preschool experiences and were noticing that in our initial early when we look at the September the November data it's showing they're growing it's just a slightly different cohort that we need to take note of as we adjust instruction moving forward second grade we had a 73
083District total foreign third grade was 65 percent and fourth grade was 69 percent the next piece that I'll share with you is the dyslexia screening data it's important to note so we screen all children for dyslexia students that are identified with characteristics of Dyslexia are the students that have not passed three out of the six diagnostic assessments so it's really important to note though that we although they may have characteristics of Dyslexia we do not diagnose dyslexia as it's a medical diagnosis also there are other developmental mental factors that could be causing these characteristics to present themselves but nevertheless we look at the data and we use that data to help us specifically respond based upon the data based upon those indicators that I already shared with you to directly Target the instruction to the
084students individual areas of need and this is outlined in the local literacy plan section eight the dyslexia interventions and all children regardless of a diagnosis of Dyslexia if they show indicators of need we'll receive those interventions so our dyslexia screening totals for this year are kindergarten we had 23 percent of students identified with characteristics of dyslexia first grade was 27 percent second grade was 16 percent third grade was 14 percent and fourth grade was five percent and when you see a decrease like that what what we're observing over time is that the early assessments that we're giving the students are mastering and are growing and learning do we have work to do absolutely um but again this data helps guide our instruction and helps us to again in a systemic way move forward and go
085okay within my classroom this is what the data shows here are the interventions that are approved here are the forms for Progress monitoring and if then statements with tier one supports tier two and tier three so for example if a child is struggling with phonemic awareness um we look at tailoring that instruction specifically to their needs within that con those Concepts so is it a rhyming issue is it syllables is it onset and rhyme is it substituting sounds blending individual sounds or segmenting sounds and then giving them those additional learning opportunities within tier one tier two and tier three if needed so each of those individual markers if you will right when you add them together increase the possibility that you have dyslexia but what you're saying is the intervention methods I'm just trying to
086get my head around it the intervention methods when somebody's not truly dyslexic are improving their performance in that particular area which is why the numbers are going down okay make sure I was tracking that I would say that one of the components of our curriculum that we've been successful because you're seeing that in this data is the amount of dynamic awareness instruction that does occur in the early grade levels it's we're relatively rich in that so yes we have some challenges in our literacy plan I'm not going to deny that but dyslexia and dyslexia identification is just not one of them our scores are quite good there okay so when you're identified as dyslexic you get the same intervention as even if you're not so say for example a family doesn't take them to get
087tested it's the same one so it's proven to work either way yes because yes we would use and that that's one thing too that when we are looking at the data it's first of all the next piece kind of to give you a context of what elementary literacy looks like I wanted to provide you with an overview we use a multi-text approach to literacy instruction so when you think about the multi-text approach it's comprehensive by design it provides whole group explicit instruction small group instruction and individual instruction and when you think of the big five of literacy which are common across literacy as we know comprehensive comprehension vocabulary fluency anemic awareness and phonics it incorporates all of those as well the context of reading and writing allow the teacher to vary the level of support
088based upon student control it's it's very driven by student data when I think about my 10 plus years in a second grade classroom I was constantly moving between the different contexts of reading and writing to adjust that instruction based upon their needs I think that's when I look at the teacher role as noted on here is really to support that teaching a child to read we're building that helping to support and build that system of strategic actions that ability that in the head thinking that has to occur for me to think about books talk about books decode have all of those um Pieces come together so giving children numerous very pragmatic strategic opportunities throughout the day to engage in that high quality comprehension conversation as well as individual support at their level I have my
089next slide kind of outlines out a little bit more for you but just really when I think about what I want for all of our readers is it's developing that inquiry stance that ability to think critically and deeply about what they read and that within this um multi-text approach it allows us to do that it's not easy it's it's difficult work and it's but it's very important work and I when I think about the kids that I have taught the kids my own kids coming in a few years this is what I would want for them so when I think about just that ongoing opportunity for them to develop their identity as a reader that is what this approach will do and does um so when you look at kind of that overview of the
090instructional context for reading um we've got interactive read aloud shared reading guided reading independent reading there's varying levels of student control and teacher support and as a teacher of reading I move in and out of each of those throughout every day um and and really what you you need all components to have that comprehensive approach I have that explicit instruction but then I use that individual that student data to help me within guided reading um within shared reading because we know the effect size um of those different you know when I think of Hattie's research like the shared reading the repeated rereads that affect sizes very important and very um relevant to what we're doing and I think the inner when I think of reading and writing and how they overlap and the interconnectedness of
091them we need all of the context to provide yeah I'm not sure this doesn't sound like a loaded question yeah because it's not meant to be but as you can imagine pretty much everybody on this board has been doing a lot of reading up on um on the subject right because we have Minnesota legislation that was passed the state level that's gonna fundamentally change a little bit of the Dynamics about how this works um so as usual there's some acronyms floating around I think the one that I see is cues how does that overlay on what you're presenting to us right now can you explain the context of it within the model that you showed us on the previous slides or does it relate or not relate am I like out in left field no
092no you're not no I'm trying to understand how they play together so when I'm reading I can understand how to translate it what we do versus what the the stuff I see in the in the in the Articles and white papers that I'm reading so when I think of the queuing system it is it is one way of organizing information and of organizing what a reader is doing um when I think about what we currently do when I look at the guided reading groups that I have worked with um as a as a second grade teacher and a fourth grade teacher I used my individual data to plan based upon okay this is this is what as I as they were reading this is what I noticed I'm doing as I was having a comprehension
093conversation taking anecdotal notes as well so it's it's the Running Records as well as the anecdotal notes um the queuing system is a specific way that you could go about that but we don't necessarily say that you have to do that okay can we back up a slide for a second we're gonna train I'm queuing no um because it's one of those things where some of the criticism of it is legitimate if you're not doing it well you're not asking to guess the meaning of a word just by first letter if that's the practice you're doing you're going to have a problem there's supposed to be more into it then but if you have not mastered that skill you're going to run into that problem it becomes an efficacy or a competency element of instruction
094Fair again just from a contextual understanding perspective and that was specifically let out in the redacts I understand why you brought it so if we go down to the fourth bullet point um the teacher's role to support the development of each child's system of strategic actions right so um as as a Layman my interpretation of that is that however whatever label we give that from a systemic perspective we're putting a lot into the teacher's hands in terms of interpretive observation of how the students are reacting to what's going on am I versus some of what we're being told is being changed out there where it is much more for lack of a better word rigid and prescribed and do I have that right or wrong in my head or how can you can you help
095me understand that a little better so when I think about well follow-up I want to give her first job when I think about the literacy assessments that we have currently in place they're very um they're normed they're um they are grounded in decades of research and they when I think about the big five of literacy they address all of them so those aren't um that teacher observation piece yes it's important and it's um part of the process but we lean very heavily on the data that we have it guides our instruction um on a daily basis and we to the and I'll get into this later as well but we talk um we meet three times a year as a build within each building to look at that literacy data to make plan adjustments specific
096to what we're seeing on those assessments um so so that is a component of it but it is not the primary source if that makes no that's fine thank you yeah so are you making are you making changes because of the new read act or not I'm not real impressed with and I'm not trying to pick on you the facts are facts and I've got your MCAS that you put on the website and it's a bummer and I see kova did knock them down but we were still in the 60s so to me it doesn't seem like a very high number in Minnesota in general Nationwide is tanking um so I mean do we give spelling tests do they do spelling tests anymore is that just ancient old-fashioned stuff sometimes anymore oh yeah I think
097there are a couple questions on the on the table your question about the the read Act there's going to be some guidance that we have to wait from from mde in terms of what constitutes approved screeners what constitutes approved curriculum that we can choose from they haven't published that yet so we have some waiting we have to do there's a timetable in the read act relative to the 24-25 school year in 26 27 school year this isn't going to count for next year no we're we're probably not going to make any major changes next year but that doesn't mean we can't work towards them you know and lay that out again this has worked the curriculum leaders are doing I think one of the things you will bring forward later in the presentation is the
098word study work that the current leaders of the lip coaches are doing right now for the reason that we've identified that there's some holes in what we do in phonics and we need more Phonics work on the resource we have for that the other thing I would I would offer for consideration is the the the issue of the curriculum that we use comes down to one of fidelity coming back to a point you're asking about the direct instruction pieces and how much power you're really putting in the hands of the teacher or pressure you're putting in the heads of the teacher we'll flip that around if you're doing lots of whole group instruction you run the risk of if that's not done very well that you're teaching to the middle okay again the element of
099fidelity and efficacy will play out in Whatever Gets chosen so I encourage us to take a step back and come back to our data which is what you're asking us to do and look at where we need to grow and we know that phonics is one of them we know that we have to wait for MD to give us some guidance on a few other pieces I would also point out that there are some key pieces here that used to exist and are gone because I believe you've heard this from your conversations with staff the K2 education assistants are gone they're not in the classrooms the way they were years ago reading recovery is a primary intervention that we use to provide for any first grader who was not at grade level is gone so
100are parents doing that our parents doing that my wife used to do that in Nisswa um read with reading recovery once or twice a week there are current volunteers who help out but our systemic structures that we had we've lost the funding for that was title two part A funding but do we still have it though Tim no bidding recovery is gone we still have the person she's now one of the link coaches but the person who trained really the state of Minnesota and reading recovery in this person she's still with us so we've lost that the reductions in Title One Part A funding title IV and title two a part A those are all things that address the staff development in terms of improving literacy supporting teachers in the classroom and the actual ability
101to execute interventions at the classroom level when you think of the title one part A interventionist there are fewer of them now than there were six seven eight nine ten years ago because we've been cutting away at that year after year after year after so there's some structures there that have gone I can't tell you that changing to a different structure a different system is going to ameliorate that effect that doesn't mean we shouldn't consider it it doesn't mean we won't follow the advice of mde but it means that we want to comprehensive look at our data in our context in order to do what's best for kids that's what we're asking for director Ward weren't you saying that that you know that reading from K through three is like your your building blocks for
102your future absolutely so I'm not trying to second guess what you guys have done because I wasn't on the board and I'm not you know I can't it's not your whatever I don't know who made these decisions but did the board decide to get rid of those people in those lower grades or did Administration decide to get rid of those people on Lower grades I mean should we get rid of some optional things at higher levels to help out the little kids to get them up to speed would that help you in the would it help them the product that we're putting out said we've been doing though we've been getting rid of these yeah we've been Paras got it there's only so many things you know some of these are categorical funding structures like
103Title One party the rules about how you can use that money and only four of our schools are Title One schools and those are Lowell Riverside Harrison and Garfield those schools have lost tutors in tutoring the building because of just reductions in that Federal funding it wasn't a conscious act on a administrator's part or an administrative teams part or even the school boards part to reduce that that's just less resource K and there's nothing you can do so you're so basically what you're telling me is if I understand you right is that we lost the funding so we didn't really have anything to say about it we can't take out of our general and find a way to replace those people at these critical ages of these young kids and maybe cut something else or
104I think when we looked at the K2 pair as it was coming off from general fund there's no other fund to support it except coming from the general fund so as budgets dwindled and think the only thing we have you know really in the system to cut is people when 80 of your budget is people and so a decision was consciously made at the time by that board and administration is that General it was 2.1 million dollars so if you want to put General Ed Perris back in classrooms you need to figure out are we need to move about 2.1 million dollars of our budget to support that so the question becomes and where do you reduce so we've tried our hardest is to protect the teachers in front of the students in the classroom
105you've seen a huge shift from para educator support go from general education it's a special education because there's funding that comes back to help support that support so it has been dwindled down it is it's like you're triaging what's the most important in the district it made the decision that they want to keep teachers in front of kids you know if you look at the comprehensive program in the high school there's a rich course electives there's career Pathways so again you're looking system-wide so that was one of the decisions is to pull that support away I I want to make sure people understand that no way am I criticizing the decisions anything my predecessors made I'm not either exactly what we're doing right here they're making decisions with the best information they had at the
106time all right but now we've got new information and new data and maybe we should start tweaking to try to fix what you're working hard on apparently might continue on thank you for answering our questions at least mine all right um yeah I'm sorry for the sidebar but oh no that's okay um I mean the whole the whole point of these questions at least from my perspective and I feel that the spirit of everybody that's asking is we're trying to learn about this or trying to learn about in a in a 360 degree fashion so that we don't get too far down the rabbit hole you live in but also not too far down the rabbit hole that the media provides for us and we appreciate that we've actually welcomed the questioning and the attention
107we do and then one last quick thing just so I understand process mde do they have a timeline for any of this or it's kind of when they get yeah and it's it's complicated enough that that's a whole nother Rabbit Hole okay we don't have to go all the way down there but it's basically they have to tear apart the legislation interpret it and and yeah they've been given their guidance they now have to digest it and give us their guidance there's some facets we have to have in place in the fall with the screener yeah to translate it to the world I know it's legislation gets passed in the treasury Department and Department of Labor have to figure out how to turn it into actual regs bingo but we're doing it now so I
108talked through through the same is true within writing so this is just kind of an overview High teacher support versus low student control moving through when you think of any particular concept that you are trying to help your writers in your classroom to be able to do you need to be able to isolate between those different contexts um support okay the next piece I'm going to talk briefly about is just the supports we currently have we've talked a little bit about that already but the supports we have at the elementary level right now we have literacy coaches we have one at each Elementary building these coaches provide these coaches um are highly trained we have worked together we work together throughout each um we meet monthly as well as on an ongoing basis I to
109help us to Define what is our professional development needs within our district as well as that individual individual coaching that needs to occur within the building so that's specific to the teachers in front of them so that they can the PD professional development is kind of that systemic approach and then the individual coaching is how we come in and support specific to okay what is that teacher's unique strengths and what might their next shift be to help better support their learners um additional train additional pieces that we have in place we do team meetings as I referenced before that's three times a year at all of the elementary buildings where we look at all of the literacy data um with the literacy coach the principal and the grade level teachers special ed teachers as well
110interventionists if they have them we meet we look at the data and we make adjustments to instruction we also um have Elementary literacy meetings that's a meeting where I meet uh Mr murtha myself all of the build Elementary building principals and the literacy coaches we meet to plan really continue that Visionary work of moving forward together looking at what is our current data showing us and how are we going to move forward together one of the pieces that we've found is that post-pandemic we have noticed that when I the context of reading and writing that I just referenced we really want to get back to being grounded in those and thinking about okay what specifically is the rationale the purpose and how are we using that to engage in high quality instruction and many of
111our teachers are already effectively doing that but it's just lifting that level of rigor going what can exit the system now that um we've made it through the pandemic what do we need to do to help respond to the data and the students in front of us um the other piece of that work that brings us to my next slide uh that is our word study that is an area that over the past multiple years we have been looking at our word study data as a piece that is something that we want to refine we when I think about word study though I put this graphic in front of you because it's really important that we think about all of these characteristics and these Concepts um phonics a very important part of it as well
112as vocab and word structure and all of these things work together to help develop effective readers and writers so what we have been doing currently so this is a group of um the literacy coaches myself as well as a curriculum leader from each of the grade levels kindergarten through fourth grade so we have identified word study we recognize that we needed a more comprehensive whole group um explicit lesson structure scope and sequence structure so what we've done is we I've kind of outlined our completed work our current work and then our future work so our completed work we first surveyed all teachers K4 we created an inventory of all K forward study resources that we use um as well as all the word study lessons that we're currently teaching whole group we grounded our ongoing
113work and the new Minnesota Ela standards and created a scope of scope of Concepts that need to be taught across the grade levels K4 referencing that slide that I just showed you thinking about all of those areas of word study and then our current work is and I just met with our group this past week we solidified a cohesive plan for K4 whole group word study lessons using the resources we currently have and now this is something to get us through for now um we have many high quality resources we've found though that we need to make it a little bit more manageable for teachers and so that we can really be specific and Target the needs of our students so we have a cohesive plan to roll out in August so that we can
114use again using the resources we have but as part of that continued curriculum review process we will move forward with creating a word study adoption curriculum adoption rubric to continue the cycle um vet some word study resources against that rubric and then bring our recommendation forward for purchase any questions on that before I move on okay and I guess the final thing that I I know this was a lot I keep trying every year I try to shorten it because it I didn't want to read you the whole local literacy plan today I figured to save you time but my biggest hope is when I think about the media and I think about all of the things that are coming at all of us um the biggest thing that I see is a group of
115people that love and care about the kids um at ISD 181 and I I think about if we can move forward together anytime we're considering any type of systemic decisions I hope that we can again continue this conversation possibly in a smaller setting looking at a curriculum school board meeting looking at our specific data looking at what is currently working within our system and what might we want to continue to refine so that we can ultimately have the best outcome for our kids because I really when I look at what we're currently doing I really believe in the opportunities we're providing our kids while continuing to adjust and respond because that obligation to meet the individual needs of each child is worth the time that we're investing in the structures um that we have so
116any questions not a chair go ahead go ahead go ahead okay mine is just a comment not a question but I appreciate your expertise and I think when you're talking about this one component of word study that is all of these things and what it takes to implement that and train on that and bring that forward for the students and I think of like a wholesale change out of a program it makes me really nervous so I I appreciate that we're being very systematic about this and bringing everyone along thank you thanks director Ward thank you I agree with what director Spirit just said I'm less patient um because Miss Cooper talked about EBD teacher and if she if she had a DVD or whatever I dealt with EBD for about 20 years out of
117my 34 year career and a lot of it stem back to reading and a lot of it stems back to not right now in Reading I don't think it's robbing Peter to pay Paul I think it's more looking at a long-term investment that has a bigger impact fiscally as well as individually that's with our children because our children right now I think are struggling with and have struck not the epidemic had something to do with it there's no question about it but we've been struggling along the way with literacy and I you know what it's no T every literacy coach I've been in all the buildings as an educator and now as well and you literacy people are working your tails off and it's critically important and rep now representative director I'm at a different
118place with represent so director too many jobs John pointed out that those are the building blocks as you well know as you well know and all the literacy people well know my I don't we're going to vote on a resolution tonight to do the same thing next year I can't do that I can't do that you said we need some work on Phonics we need a lot in my opinion and uh okay I know EBD I'm not a literacy expert but I know I I'm pretty sure I know what you know direction we need to know to go and somebody else referenced the new legislation this year what are we doing to try to approach the science of reading and the read act what are we going to do next year and I know that
119I know that next year the budget I mean I know all of that stuff right but we got to make some minerals here we have to make some minerals for for our kids um because we're still we are still and it isn't just our district it's in my opinion Nationwide I mean I think everybody would agree with that so and and I really mean the literacy people um are working their tails off and doing everything they should and could or whatever but I know also there's differences of opinion here I know within the literacy programs or difference opinion I know within the professional staff there's different so how can we come up with a solution for our kids going into next year we can't wait another year in my opinion as a board member because
120I agree with them those EVD kids need that and those healthy kids and the our children all children need that and so when I when I think about what I shared with the word study piece yes creating again we've identified the barriers we've identified that the differentiated instruction with the management of it with the lack of and the diminished support that we have that that's part of what has made it unmanageable um and that is why at this point with the current resources that I we have at our disposal creating those whole group lessons identifying creating and it's been very comprehensive work over the course of this year we've looked at and we've outlined a scope and sequence to go and it was a negotiation going okay kindergarten you're taking this concept okay first grade
121to what degree are you teaching this concept and and then plugging in the lessons that we're going to do for that now is it a perfect system is it something that I think is going to fix everything magically no because there's a training element with it too and there's an ongoing support and that's where that coaching comes in but I think the biggest thing that I would caution us is anytime we make a rash quick decision when we've got 100 and I'm I'm the same yeah let's face it this is a government organization there are no rash quick decisions people like me make rash quick decisions and move and bounce football coaches make raps quick decisions schools States governments it takes forever it's like turning around the Titanic and so I think what we're saying
122is is can you give us can you throw us a bone here yeah I hit Mr murtha on the literacy coaches I've talked to some of the elementary teachers that have said it would be a lot better off with more teachers and not literacy coaches and he straightened me out because you don't have the funding I guess they're funded are they funded through this acomp Q cop stuff they're she's funded through Acom the lit coaches come out of District staff development they do work together as systems they're they're linked structures again the staff to have structures so there's no money in acot and the money and staff down that can go into a classroom to work with kids I just feel like these kids need an opportunity you know and they deserve it and we've
123got a lot of money we spend a lot of money I'm not saying the school is Rich and we have all the stojis coming out of our ears but for this kind of investment in terms of responding to the read act the key components the redact for us in terms of Elementary literacy deal with number one the direct instruction around the five elements of literacy which we do okay it also says though we're not required to we're strongly encouraged to have an mtss structure to ensure that students get the support they need tier one is core instruction that's what she's responsible for for literacy so we're building that and we started that before the read act we started the work on the word study components before the read act we're not the ones late to
124the table okay we're responding to the data that we have we are responding as quickly as we can and you're right we're not fast at it it's not easy to pull teachers it's not easy for us to do some of the things when people have eight hour work days and their primary job is working with kids if we want teachers involved in the process and at the table for whatever we create that will require patience because they have a job already we talked about what a curriculum leader has to do and how much they do it above and beyond already a question for you are we are you did you put a group of teachers we put a group of teachers together to create the curriculum or tailored you create the curriculum no we both
125she facilitates a process Heidi told me there's five thousand different ones there's more than that definitely there's ten thousand okay then we I almost want to table that to Friday and then let me answer that for you then I'm just I'm taking a look at the clock and I've kept you here far longer than we normally do for presentation like this short version of this is curriculum is the relationship between assessment instruction and outcomes those are the three things that create a curriculum it's not stuff it's not tangible things that's a 35 year out of date idea that was out of date when I was a young teacher what we want to be doing is making sure that we answer four very clear questions number one what do we want to know kids one a
126kid to know and be able to do question of learning Target question of standard how will we know that the child knows it and can do it question of assessment question number three what do we do if after instruction the kid still doesn't know it or can't get it that's intervention what if we do if before instruction the child already knows that it can do it that's a question of enrichment that's it that those are the four elements of a curriculum right there so ask us to to not the 35 year old way of thinking about things the new way right we were minting everything and doing the first heart transplants and things like that the new way I see well all right so what are we gonna do Mr chair thank you because I
127wasn't finished yet um and again I want to read everybody not just literacy people but everybody's working their tails off to try to help our kids period um and I've been in all of us in this room have been in education long enough to know that the pendulum swings this idea that idea this I can't tell you how many times I pendulum swung in my 34 years and it swung there are some good things with a pendulum swing and there's some bad things with a pendulum swing okay but this I've come to understand that literacy is I believe the most important aspect of Education that we have and I used to believe that was fayad I used to be with special in my opinion literacy is the building block just like director Donovan said so
128Tanner you suggested that we as we move towards evaluating and going forward maybe we do that with small groups and you suggested Mr Martha that maybe we table this maybe we should table this whole resolution until we can come up with what are we going to do next year are we going to do the same thing are we going to try are we going to do something I would say that that's a false dilemma the director with all due respect well you can but I I I'm still going to say that I know and I respect your right to do that I hope you respect my right to disagree first of all we got a July 1st deadline I understand I can't bring this to you in May because we don't have end-of-school year data
129mde is responsible for that window we're not the the next piece to it is the assumption that we're not doing anything is not accurate working on the problem we're trying to replace our word study structure the teacher input we're building the mtss structure which identifies what interventions we're changing the screener that we're using so we're not not doing anything all those are things that are in the read act we just happen to have started them before the read act required us to the readout just made it easier not easier redot just made it easier to get it brought up at a school board meeting because I've been thinking this the whole time it's the only reason I wanted to be on this deal it's like we have got to address this this is the this
130is a issue and you know uh director heitman's not here and this he brings it up every single meeting and it's unfortunate he's not here because I think he'd be pretty interested in this too so but once again the state has been defensive Mr murtha director Martha whatever I'm supposed to call you they've got ahead and they've told us we have to have this in by July 1st is that true and they we can't do it until the results are in which happens after the first of June so this is our only meeting and you've got us and here we are well you're well prepped for our budget discussion later Tim just a quick thing you you sort of acknowledge that there are some holes in the phonics piece right that there's some work to
131do there and I think as as I listen to everybody else talking about this where I'm trying to get my head is are there are there tweaks for 23 24 in that particular area that would put us on that path that would make uh certain members of the board feel more comfortable with approving the resolution knowing the timetable that we're on sure my short answer is yes we'll let her amplify because she did reference it briefly in the presentation is just part of the okay now before she goes anywhere would that help you director Ward director donelinger if if she goes on and tells us a little bit about what they plan to do before it's compulsory under the read act or whatever we have to do you know for subsequent schools I mean some
132of this will get covered in The Retreat on Friday this is definitely a line item on on for discussion on that as well so we can go as Tim mentioned there are several rabbit holes and that's what the retreat's for so we don't you know suck all the oxygen out of this room tonight I know what it's happening and it sucks but the deal is is that it's just there's only so many opportunities you know it's like from everything I find out it's like these really are important years you just hate to waste another one yeah and I want to be sensitive to your challenge there Dr director Donald I live in this world 35 years of it so I can move through the jungle pretty easily if you're coming cold to this I know
133it looks completely bizarre in the looks for it um well I think again speaking for myself what looks horrid is the assessments not relative to anything else but you know there shouldn't be anything coming out of a school district with a six in front of it as the as the as they'll agree on that we have the same shared goal Mr chair can we hear from Taylor on uh yeah okay no that's okay when I think about when I take us back to that process that we're currently engaging in what we in order to make an informed recommendation for purchase we needed to go back and take an inventory of what we currently have to reassess and then redistribute those materials appropriately across the grade level so what we did is I there was a
134training component with that group that I worked with that K4 literacy group including the literacy coaches so what we did is we identified where the holes in instruction were and we went wow we don't have a ton within this component we don't have this okay how are we going to create anytime you create a scope and sequence you need all of those people at the table and that's exactly what we did um so we've identified things that have to leave the system which was that differentiated um word study piece happening during the day other than at guided reading and now we're directing teachers beginning next school year to start doing the whole group explicit instruction um scope and sequence of lessons for kindergarten for first grade for second grade this will help us to make
135an informed recommendation when we look at those curricular resources for preview because until you look at the scope of what we have and really create a cohesive system for students so that they can take on that learning spiral over time we we wouldn't have been able to make an informed decision to purge for purchase so I truly believe that this is a step it's been it's been long and it's but it's it's taken me multiple days of full full day subs for teachers to get them together to get our group and we've got we've got Jenna teachers we've got special teachers we've got speech language Pathologists we've got all of us in a room together playing an important role and I I know it's been lengthy but it's we're making change and we're moving forward
136I appreciate that okay I do appreciate that any other questions on that we're not picking on you we just want results yeah and I feel like from the context of the board and the board job description so to speak we are not literally literacy experts I mean I'm not you guys might be so I'm barely literate I feel like our job is to say here's the outcomes we're shooting for here's how we're going to prioritize literacy we think it's really important you fill in how we get from goal you know priority to objective in reaching that success because your you and your team are going to know that best pass forward and you know what we're trying to accomplish it's it's for us to lay out what we're trying to accomplish and that we are
137going to prioritize it and I appreciate that and I I really truly appreciate all of the questions um and the fact that we can move forward collectively together for our kids although director spirit is absolutely correct on what she said we as the board also are the ones that hear from Community from parents from those kids that are struck from the parents or kids especially that are struggling you know that kind of thing absolutely yeah and we owe it to all of our kids to move forward we we know their strengths but there are needs and we need to respond and I guess I think that these opportunities help us feel trusting and the community trusting that you with your expertise are really taking a hard look at that and I'm happy to have more
138conversations with all of you so but I I appreciate all of the information you shared with us thank you and your transparency well it needs to be stated again the collective experience of this board is not massive you know um you know it's certainly from a practical perspective outside the boardroom we all have different experiences both in and outside of the educational system but I think one of the things I had to learn early on is that we get upside down on these statutory deadlines and so here we are with an action item that we pretty much have to take action on what I would say is as a board what we can take on ourselves is the commitment that um what I will tell you is I would like you in front of us
139every meeting until now from now until the beginning of the school year so we can each time we can see a little bit of progress on where we're going with what interventions or enhancements we're going to make um we can talk about them in the Retreats as well but I think you know doing them here in the public eye so people can see that we're doing something we're not just waiting for the mde clarifications to come down and then you know because like Tim said you're already working on half of it anyway which is great you know so I think we're it isn't going to take that much energy to get us all rolling in the same direction at least nominally to get us some sort of movement that we don't waste another year of
140kids waiting for all of this to come down right I think that's what I'm hearing from uh director's warden donnellinger for short I feel like when you look at what's in the plan and Mr Martha mentioned this we are we are already doing it coming out in this end and we're ahead of the game in what is going to be asked of us for next year to take on when they sort through this so I feel good about it I feel good about what you've laid out in the plan and where you're headed with what's important to addressing the scores that we're seeing I think it's up to us to say you know what what will we be happy with what outcomes do we feel like are appropriate commission Mr chair I'm sorry for prolonging
141this but I feel it's very important here I want you to know and everybody in here that superintendent Dr Han and I have talked about this um this actually came up to for me at the msba conference um as a that's where I realized how important literacy is at the msba conference and there's some there's a lady named Kim Gibbons and uh Katie Raquel cacao um that raised my antennas and and I've been communicating with and sharing with Dr Han you know um and there's there are there are I mean there are concerns from professionals not even in this District you know about not just our literacy program but literacy programs in this in the state and so that's one of the things in the in the legislation is they're going to evaluate and look
142at and you know literacy programs around the state so it's not just it's all crazy retired teacher thinking this is you know what are we doing here you know it's all of us are are very I believe very good in doing research and seeking out and trying to get professional information so I just wanted to I wanted to share that with you as well and I won't say anything more I promise but I just want you to know evenings young what evening's Young yeah okay I just want you I I just think it's important that you understand that we're paying attention so we're expecting results and I don't know if that's really a school thing but it's in everything else in the world it's in business it's in sports it doesn't make any difference you're
143in charge of this if you think you got the right plan like Sarah like Kevin said I'm not an English teacher how would I know but I can read this report that you gave us and I could see the results and I'm not very impressed with them so I appreciate it if you get this fixed and so what all these little kitties so get on it Taylor fix this damn thing it's challenged me with with that Taylor is a teacher I'm the director of teaching and learning all right well then we'll challenge you with it all right I would entertain a motion to approve the resolution has presented and second it we have a motion from director Spear and a second from director Brecken to approve the resolution for the local literacy plan world's best
144Workforce be well by third grade as presented any further questions or discussion hearing none um we'll call vote please we have a resolution yes thank you thank you very much and it is with deep apologies to all those in attendance um this meeting was designed to be super long by Design because we have a time constraint for our July meeting so we are cramming a ton of stuff in here we still have budgets and other stuff to talk about plus a closed session after we kick all of you out but I am going to recess us for five minutes so that people can uh this person use potties and whatnot so the time now is actually 805. we'll be back at 8 12 please presentations next up is the Early Childhood curriculum Connie and Brandi
145and uh I'm here you're here all night what about us you too hi I am Brandi Wynn and I coordinate and teach for early childhood and I will be going through our early childhood curriculum presentation foreign here's our early childhood vision statement and then just a little bit about our early childhood programming so we have 18 School Readiness integrated VPK and self-contained classrooms planned for right now for next year within those classrooms we'll have around 430 students that will use this curriculum within those classrooms teachers may have two to three different groups of students our programming has options of two full days four half days or two half days we just wanted to acknowledge our curriculum committee members that helped us work on the pilot and the curriculum review the curriculum we are presenting is
146Frog Street this is a comprehensive Early Childhood curriculum the state has a list of early childhood curriculums that are approved through parent aware which is an early childhood State rating system for high quality programming many of Early Childhood funding is tied to our four star rating the state requires Early Childhood programs to use a research-based approved curriculum that aligns with State Standards fragg street is a curriculum on this list and we have those um under here Brainerd Early Childhood uses the Brainerd Public Schools Early Childhood assessment and TS gold both assessments are state approved and required to align with our state standards these assessments are used across all of our three to five-year-old programs this is our early childhood indicators of progress there are State Standards our standards and benchmarks are prioritized using the Early
147Childhood indicators of progress and those identified learning domains in the blue are the domains they are required learning domains within Early Childhood indicators of progress the state prioritizes the identified components within each domain as our core standards and benchmarks Frog Street is aligned with these core standards and benchmarks because the ISD 181 assessment and TS gold assessment are state approved they are required to assess all of those benchmarks at the bottom here is an example of our Brainerd ISD 181 assessment we have begun creating a frog Street curriculum Fidelity schedule for implementation due to the right variety of class options to ensure core standards are met across all Early Childhood classrooms this will ensure that every classroom is focusing on Frog Street core standards Prague Street has several focused content areas that align with our
148early childhood standards conscious discipline which focuses on social emotional Pre-K literacy mathematics and science foreign here are some examples from our classrooms that piloted this year these are pictures from some of the classrooms implementing some of the conscious discipline these skills are built into classroom routines every day morning Circle goes through a unite calm connect and commit activities the students unite through our school Family song calm by practicing and breathing techniques connect through a pattern activity and commit to the classroom agreements so the classroom Agreements are over here conscious discipline also focuses on community building within and outside the classroom there's a celebration ritual to celebrate things students have done helping hands book some with classroom pictures a safe space to go and calm down for students kindness tree that has Hearts added to for
149doing things and having our school family jobs these are just a few examples within the curriculum there are special needs adaptations and differentiated instruction throughout the curriculum state standards and benchmarks are focused for all of our students within programming and since Frog Street is a state approved curriculum that meets our standards and assessments all students will have access to the curriculum frag Street focuses on cultural responsiveness meeting the needs of a diverse classroom and teaching strategies for implementing an anti-bias education and cultural responsiveness strategies listed throughout the curriculum their language supports which meet the needs of dual language Learners through dll ell strategies that are provided at point of use in the English teacher guide there's all there are also Spanish Family Resources included there are special needs adaptations lessons to use at point of
150use throughout the curriculum with focused on visual impairments hearing impairments cognitive challenges delayed motor development communication disorders emotional and behavioral challenges autism spectrum disorder sensor sensory integration issues and children at risk for failure there are also teaching strategies within the welcome guide during teacher implementation all right I think we're through the presentation do you guys have any questions Mr chair director Ward I just want to thank Miss Flowers for having uh me there to visit and reading to the kids and if you haven't been to the Early Childhood Center go there it is a really great experience you do great work and we've been talking about a lot about K through three we've got to remember EC is also extremely important and I think the state is starting to hopefully recognize and understand that as
151well with some of the Investments that they made this year in their legislative session so you know when I thought it was just like you know 15 or 20 kids at this place you know it's it's unbelievable what they do there so thank you for all you how you do it's remarkable I'm good thank you very much for the presentation all right so on on the docket is the approval of the Early Childhood uh curriculum as presented I emotion second all right we have a motion by director donlinger with a second by director Ward to approve the Early Childhood curriculum any further discussion hearing none hey finally not a resolution um all in favor signify they say hi hi opposed same sign motion carries thank you very much Tony thanks Brady next up 9-12 Health
152wellness and fitness curriculum let's give this one over to Ms Cooper she can handle it is surprise there we go that's all right it's more of slides than a presentation isn't it yeah so you notice how the recess gave so many people like the opportunity the Irish eggs and present it like that it's good good evening I'm Jolene Owen and I teach health and yoga at the Brainerd High School and I'll make you white and I do the same thing all right except for I don't teach yoga yet okay so we are here to talk about our health wellness and fitness curriculum um Health wellness and fitness is a required course to graduate from Brainerd High School it's a two or I'm sorry it's a one credit course and then it's also required to be
153taken before they take any students take any other elective for phyad so Health wellness and fitness is that first course along that line a majority of the students who do take Health wellness and fitness are 9th grade students we do sometimes have sophomores 10th grade students um once in a while Juniors and seniors which kind of depends on courses that they have taken prior to this the state of Minnesota does not have um standards for health and so with health we go by the national standards which were created by the CDC Center for Disease Control um and these are the eight standards right here that we follow so looking into some of the topics that we cover within Health wellness and fitness this is an example of one of the benchmarks and the learning Target
154for these topics that we cover mental health sexual health physical health relationships that's just a little bit of what we cover within our health wealth and fitness throughout the semester we do because it is a semester course throughout the semester we cover five units and this is just a kind of just a snippet of what we cover next we're going to show you one of our assessments that we do at the very beginning of the semester and here's the standard that this assessment covers along with the learning targets and with the learning at Targets this is what the students at the end of this assessment will be able to do you want to go through the assessment sure okay um so what the students do is they put together a presentation essentially that covered the
155eight different components of Health this is an example of one of the slides that they work through and it gives them the definition of emotional wellness and then just some different examples of it and then what they end up doing is they either they'll take or they'll find a couple images that connect them to emotional health or what remind them of emotional health we give them some suggestions there um and then then they continue on and they they have to write some journal entries based on topics around for this specific example would be emotional wellness and we give them prompts writing prompts for that as well too you guys have them do anything on food exercise yep and so nutrition is mainly emotional is it hat say that again is it like your eight things
156are they all equal or do we talk about emotional health emotional health emotional health and a little bit about taking care of your body and because you know exercise will help your emotional no we work that in there it's all pretty even good deal with this assessment too this is just an example of one of the components of Wellness that we cover they actually cover all eight within this assessment and so it is a very lengthy assessment at the very beginning but we feel it's very important because it is the base of what health and wellness is and also just gives them that understanding of what health and wellness is and then yes throughout the semester we do cover nutrition we cover Alcohol Tobacco other drugs Sexual Health did I miss one nutrition yes and
157then we also so um what our week looks like is usually a typical week would be um Tuesday Wednesday Thursday we are in the classroom Mondays Fridays we're in in the gym so we do Fayed with them as well what's good for them yeah so I would share I thought that when the state eliminated their state standards that was dumb period and um is there any is there any thought at all about going back to State Standards with I know you heard me say that I thought phiad was in health was important before and it still it all is but is there any discussion at all about rather than using national standards to go back to State Standards you know what you know would you guys know I do know that okay oh that's sad
158thank you any other questions all right since this group is presenting again I would entertain a motion for the approval of the curriculum Mass presented motion that good so we have a motion by director donaldinger with a second by director Brecken any further questions hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye all right opposed same sign motion carries on to yoga maybe for the board retreat we should have um no no they cut me off before I even got all the way I'm not coming [Laughter] we'll just kind of go like yeah okay so I currently teach Yoga Yoga one at the high school and after looking at our registration numbers in the spring they went up by a whole class size and so then I took a look at who had
159already taken yoga one and with that I had an interest in creating a Yoga 2 course for students and so Beth and I had met and we came up with assessments and also in regards to standards for yoga too creating this course so with this one um these are the Minnesota standards that we will follow for yoga 2. like Health wellness and fitness there is a sequence to taking yoga one and yoga two so Health wellness and fitness is a required course again um for graduation so that would be the first course that they would have to take in order to go on to take yoga and then yoga two yoga one if they choose it is an elective that would be a course that they can take and then from there if they if
160a student has taken yoga one they can go on to choose to take yoga too this is an example of or this is the numbers in the past registration numbers for yoga you can see that um last year our numbers were at about 83 and we're up to 135 that registered for yoga it was 105 the 92 then 83 and then boom I'm up 50 people it's pretty cool yeah it was really really good to see so after looking at those 135 students about 27 of them were repeats or had already taken yoga one and so that was kind of piqued my interest a little bit of creating a Yoga 2 course here we have standards whoops and the benchmarks that we that are required for yoga one and for yoga two so what's the
161difference what's going to be the difference between yoga one and yoga two um yoga two is going to build on the number of challenging poses so right now for yoga one there's about 10 to 12 basic yoga poses that we cover um throughout that semester and so Yoga 2 will introduce review those and then we'll go a little above and beyond with those poses Yoga 2 will build uh knowledge and skill around previously learned poses like I previously mentioned including modifications and extensions all yoga poses can be modified for any student and so that is something that looking into Yoga 2 that I want students to be able to identify and and do is is modify these poses for themselves or even extensions to challenge themselves as well they will need to be able to
162identify and correct errors in yoga one poses as well and this is an example or this is the yoga poses that we cover in yoga one and then going on into yoga two we will get into some more challenging ones as far as strength flexibility and balance goals here's a rubric regarding yoga one for and yoga two and so um this rubric is in regards to the pose downward dog um and in yoga one they identify um how to do this pose and then they will also as we go into yoga too I want it would be um required of them to be able to identify in correct common errors within specific poses and with this one downward dog and and also partner partnering up and looking at these poses in regards to what modifications
163might need to be done or if there are some errors and identifying those errors this is another assessment that Beth and I had created it's a rubric in regards to a specific pose this is Eagle pose um and again it's a more advanced pose and something that we will cover in yoga too if you have anything to add Beth because you helped me with these yeah I mean it's that one yeah I mean really understanding kind of how to modify and then also how to extend the movements I think was one of the biggest things we were focusing on in that yoga two class yeah so having them to be more independent in their practice again another another assessment looking at specific yoga poses um and describing that yoga pose and then again with a
164partner identifying um improvements and then also strengths of that pose okay what percent are boys one percent of girls actually that um that has also increased specific percentage I don't know off of hand right now but if I look at back at the classes that I taught last year I probably had between two to three boys per class and I taught three sections of it and we are up to almost 30 boys registered yeah yeah and of all levels too I mean it's not just athletes it's and that's the wonderful thing about yoga is that it's for everybody a whole bunch of kids with good balance thank you very much again for another great presentation I'm making motion to approve to adopt The Yoga 2 curriculum as presented second all right we have a motion
165from director spirit with the second from director Ward to approve the Yoga 2 curriculum as presented any further discussion hearing none those in favor say aye aye aye opposed same sign motion carries thanks again thank you very much all right I guess we're gonna look at some handbooks please tell me we're not going to go through them all 100 at a time are they all the same essentially yes essentially less okay I'm asking for you to adopt the handbooks for the 2324 school year and there aren't tremendous number of major changes to the handbooks but there are a couple things to point out uh number one the 2324 calendar is approved in July and will be added to each handbook at this time so the calendar would not be up to date as it's currently
166written uh when the school board approves the student handbook changes table contents any other formatting will get taken care of at that point when referencing parents we've also added the Hat the slash plus Guardians we've replaced the language around STAR testing which we no longer do it's starting this fall with fast Bridge District district 181 ISD has been changed to Brainerd Public Schools we've added a section on food deliveries as a disciplinary issue at the request of the secondary principles we have removed the e-learning day language that does not change policy we're still an approved e-learning District but we've taken it out of the handbook because we have no intention of doing it as a board action relative to schedule but we still have the capacity to do it if the board ever wanted to
167revisit that issue we've changed language around family collaborative to collaborative service workers and we've updated language about attendance codes and attendance policy there are some minor language changes as always every single year and that's it motion I read one I'll second it we have a motion from director Don Winger exuberant emotion and a second from director Brecken any further discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed same sign motion carries thank you Mr Martha thank you much next up is Anne Marie with uh this was an amended item added to the agenda for the approval of the certification of updated District population estimate as presented as presented good evening the Minnesota State demographer's office has released the 2022 District population data and due to population growth Brainerd Community Education Program
168now qualifies for an additional four thousand ninety two dollars and 10 cents in general Community Education Revenue this resolution must be passed by the school board by June 30th to adjust our census population so it goes up by two dollars a person huh okay one of four thousand four thousand ninety two dollars population went up 1900 and we got four grand woohoo big spiders motion second we have a motion from director donlinger the second from director spear any further discussion and questions hearing none all in favor oh I'm sorry where we have a roll call again that's right pending chairman spear with the uh [Laughter] yes yes doesn't are in favor thank you okay next up would be the approval of the renewal for the 2020-24 resolution for membership in the Minnesota State High School
169league as presented I believe that is Heidi and Jack I think Mr Martha left us coffee sorry I was not paying him with the tire twos it's a long walk down alrighty so in front of you have uh the Minnesota State High School League school membership resolution uh the following prices will be used to estimate our membership costs for the 2023 uh 2024 year it's 160 dollars per activity it's 2.25 cents based on our mshsl student enrollment and then each school has a hundred dollar fee to be a member school so our total for the year uh is nine thousand ninety nine dollars and fifty cents and these are the same costs as last year uh the actual cost will be determined following their August 1 board of directors meeting and will be invoiced later
170on in August the league anticipates that member schools will receive a significant credit back as they had a really good year financially the credit back to the member schools is determined by the amount of Revenue that the league generates during the year how does that generate Revenue state tournament state tournaments would be a big big Revenue generator for the State High School league bless you I'll make a motion to approve the renewal second all right we have a motion from Dr scare the second from director Ward to approve the membership renewal of the membership with the Minnesota state or with the Minnesota State High School league as presented any further discussion hearing none all those in favor no we're on a little resolution I was doing so good for the first three hours yes yes
171yes oh yes DJ donnlinger yes Sarah Speer yes all presidents in favor I even circled it but oh but I moved down to msba so that's where I got derailed because that one's not a resolution we don't that one's not no okay so Moving On We're to msba renewal motion second why not can we come inside Do It um we have a motion from director Donnelly or the second from director spear pretty straightforward just pretty straightforward what are we gonna do I mean all right here uh hearing no further discussion those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed same sign motion carries we are renewed with msba next up is the approval to renew membership with mrea for the 2023-2024 year as presented make a motion second any questions or discussions how much
172is it I I can't see is I don't have access okay people up that I left my package I can't see it I don't know I don't have access that's the rural Association Minnesota rural Education Association uh it is we're already members twenty five hundred dollars perfect same amount as last year all right so to make sure I have that right uh it was a motion from director donblinger director spear with a second by with director Ward got it um all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye same sign motion carries next up we're gonna talk about milk Brainerd Public Schools went out for milk bid this year um we got three people back Cass Clay is now camps for us we have them currently and they came in with uh the overall
173lowest bid so that's the recommendation I'm moving for the board it's getting Tighter and Tighter to find um independent milk delivery so we're still happy to get three people coming back with bids so some districts getting forward with stuff that comes from campus and some districts don't get any bids back so we're happy to have three fairly competitive because they're still in Minnesota all of these companies are Minnesota companies yes I know the Big Sky I'm glad your Earth comes yeah I'll make a motion that we approve the milk bag we have a motion from director Brecken with a second from director donelinger to approve the milk bread milk bid as presented any further discussion hearing none those in favor say aye aye aye opposed same sign motion carries thank you we'll get some milk
174thanks Alyssa next up is the approval of the resolution for the identified official with authority as presented as you know this is an annual renewal of Authority for me to Grant access to the Minnesota Department of Education data collection systems so this is the mechanism by which people are granted the ability to submit their information to the state relative to whatever programming they have whether it's Sue Anderson's MCA data whether it's Ms flowers Early Childhood data it's there's all kinds of forms of data that MD collects and they have to identify who has the right to donate to uh to upload it motion second of course right we have a motion from director Donald with the second from director spear give me further questions for director murtha hearing none in the roll call vote yes
175John Moore yes thank you and remaining in the hot seat because of the review msbi policies as presented on one amended item from the agenda we did remove policy 605 from this this tonight correct thank you policy 510 is just a three-year annual or three-year triannual review there are no changes to the policy at this time uh policy 601 which is School District curriculum instructional goals only significant change deals with the equitable distribution of teachers and strategies to ensure low-income and minority children are not taught at higher rates than other children by inexperience or ineffective or out of field teachers so this has to go with hiring practices assignment practices and training practices policy 602 the only major change in this edition of linking reviewing the protocol for closing schools to the annual approval of
176the calendar this is not an approval of any changes to the calendar for the 23-24 school year apology number 603 no substantive changes to policy or District practice it does emphasize the link between site leadership and CIP teams in the district advisory committee policy 604 changes include clarification on making curriculum available for the public of Guardians to review we do this by publishing all curriculum on the district website it also eliminates language requiring the high school Civics test which has been removed in the read act legislation policy 605 we have tabled well we've come back to that one and policy 609 I'm a little trouble scroll down there's no substantive changes to the policy to change this clarifies that annual notification of the right to opt out of curriculum or to participate in religious activities
177one afternoon a month or a week on Wednesday afternoons is granted by Statue which is a practice we've all always you can't approve these as a group you don't need to pull them out unless there's one you wish to talk about so move second all right we have a motion from director Ward with a second from director Donald Larry to him uh to approve policies 510-601-602-603-604 and 609 as presented any further discussion hearing on none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposing sign motion carries thank you thank you next up is the approval of the first reading of msba policies as presented these are 427 and 503. specific to policy 427 workload limits for certain special education teachers this policy actually was uh mandated back when I was the director of
178special education and was developed the school district has been operating under this workload limits for special education teachers policy without formally adopting it so when Janet went to pull it for review because it's time to review it it was found that was never formally adopted even though we've been following this process so what really happens is we're very reliant on working directly with our Paul Bunyan education cooperative and they help us go conduct What's called the workload analysis so taking into account instructional minutes direct minutes indirect minutes number of people's being served there's a wide variety of that so we'd love to balance that workload so that's what this policy outlines um and the reason it's a first reading is it's never formally been adopted so any questions so that one is there any reason
179it wouldn't be first and Final um I think since this first I'd like to give a chance for people to weigh in if they have any questions okay so okay I was kind of shocked again I said oh they never adopted it if a student attendance the same thing first reading uh yes there's actually uh reason being there's some substantial changes so this will be the first um reading we really looked you're going to see lots of red lines to this policy so anytime we do a substantial change we'd like to have it be the reading sometimes input really what we're trying to look at what's cleaning up is what's an unexcused absence and clearly articulating that so when a parent calls in there's some guidelines of what would be considered unexcused and really wrapping
180around timelines so if you look at look at the under um it's used absence which is one and then two is excused absences on page three really looking at three or consecutive days when a student's been absent more than 10 days cumulative asking for a doctor's note or some type of note from a healthcare provider if a guardian's requesting absences for more than 10 cumulative days for reasons included but not limited to Vacation fishing hunting so really looking at we know when kids missed 10 or more days to school we start to see the decline in academic achievement we've really never had parameters so this policy is looking at clearly defining what's considered excused and unexcused those are the substantial changes is it okay if I interrupt you yeah absolutely well number three isn't it
181seem just a little rough that uh after a funeral and students immediate family like if your uncle dies you can't go to the funeral what page are you on director 503-2 under B number three you go three consecutive days ten days cumulative then the next one is a scratched out uh friends or relatives so again we're looking at cumulative so anytime oh for 10 days gotcha okay done that's going to be good hit that once you're over 10 days I was thinking maybe the fire flood and storm thing might count to so for example we've had you know I get it so of course we wouldn't count it it's a good clarification and I love how I think that'll be really good it's going to be that's why it's important to get this policy out
182in red and make sure our families are reunion um a significant amount of work has been done on the the back side of this uh with clerical two we have lots of codes and codes are being used differently across building so that's all been streamlined and cleaned up too they really and that's being driven and directed by the policy as well so if you can thank Dr Candace Burkhart policy she's been working internally on perfect so excuse me just to prove these together uh this is first reading so we don't have to even approve them first reading and then we'll bring them back make a motion to approve the first reading for both of these as presented I'll second we have a motion from director spear with a second from director Brecken to approve policies
183427 and 503 at the first reading any other further discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed same sign motion carries okay now we get to the meat of the meeting I think we've already had the means yeah see if I stay awake all right [Applause] so in your board packet is a a very lengthy document on the 2324 budget I'm just gonna do a very brief overview we focus on the general fund since it's the majority of the operations if you guys have questions on any of the other funds please feel free to ask the starting point is our first budget revision so we're at a deficit of about 626 000 in the general fund um and then more detail also I was going to add was presented at
184the finance committee so we went through this in a great more detail as well if um if you were wondering so our Revenue assumptions from the starting point of the budget revision was four percent increase so we did just learn that in May that we got four percent on the formula we do have a decrease in enrollment of 140 adjusted pupil units that's some our bread and butter is the student counts um there was a increase in compensatory Revenue so we went from 31.6 percent free and reduced to 45.4 so that equated to about a 2.8 million dollar increase uh cross subsidy Aid also increased uh we are going to get 44 starting next year and that's an estimated 2.7 million so those are the big ones in the revenue side this is just a
185look at our enrollment projections so next year 5856 that's with 409 in kindergarten and as of May we were at 403 with enrollment so we're we're tracking very nicely with that I just wanted to I know it's been asked well where are our kids going you know when we talk about our seniors leaving it's like 530. looking at the data for births by county in 2009 there were 757 bursts in Crow Wing County in 2019 the most recent data there was 638 so 119 less children and not saying they stay here but that's just another data point expensive so there are projected increases in salary and benefits and services in the general fund as well as all the other funds and then there is an addition of I just wanted to note the net increase
186of Staffing approximately 5 FTE six of those are the student support Specialists that's coming from cares so and then we also have the known replacement Savings in there as well and it's it's continually changing right we could get a resignation tomorrow that's not in this budget when we do the budget Revision in January we'll try to capture all those changes so with all excuse me go ahead um Mr chair yes um when is opeb done so the actuary report I looked at today was is through 2071. it's 71. and that's projections I mean that's yeah this shocks me what is it okay that's our other post-employment benefits that um when you retire yeah yeah yes so with all the assumptions in there we're looking at a excess of 900 around 900 and 1000 in the
187general fund um in safe schools you'll see there's a deficit of about 133 000 and that includes with our contract with Reichert we're going to pay for cameras that is in there and then also ltfm has a deficit of about 350 000 and then the ltfm plan will be presented at finance and the next board meeting which will detail more of that out unassigned fund balance we talked about this at one of the previous board meetings the current policy is still at 10 percent with the projected balance and unassigned we'd be at 12.1 so we'd be above that that policy some things to consider so we are projected to have an excess which is great that's the first time since I've been here but approximately 2.7 million of staff are currently coded to cares funds
188and that expires September 30th 2024 so we will need to have a plan um before then on what we're going to do uh also some other things to consider there are other unknown increases that we will get in the revision if there's anything in utilities or contracts that to follow I have everything in there of to date the contracts we have to date and then also unemployment Aid and the related expense that passed that is not in there however it should be Awash so if we spend X number on the expense we're supposed to get the rate Aid back until it runs out so once I have an idea of what maybe that looks like that would be included in the revision as well the other funds so food service we are we do have
189free meals next year so we tried to update that however as commented earlier the state and federal rates come out in July so that will be in the revision once we know that and then supply chain funding we had received that in the last two years we don't know what that number will look like this year the community service fund there was an increase in the Abe funds which was great because we were looking at a decrease the building construction I just wanted to note it does show a negative and that's due to a change in the draw schedule so when we did the revision they gave us a draw schedule we actually have drawn less than what was in that schedule and then they gave us an updated draw schedule which makes it look
190like we're going in the negative but we won't when we close out the year Debt Service there's debt payments and then a transfer from ltfm so when we issued um the bonds this spring we had to go back and we have to do a transfer from ltfm to Debt Service because the levy was already done so that's Incorporated in this budget that you will be looking for approving tonight the opeb trust the only update really is the implicit draw which is based on the Actuarial report and then The opeb Debt Service the last payment was in 22.23 and I believe that there'll be an Levy adjustment just basically recoup those funds on a future Levy that was super duper fast but are there any questions I think most of that you covered with director Don
191the mayor and myself in the finance committee meeting the only question I have is then did I hear correctly we've ironed out the discrepancies in the ICS draw if if we are on track with what we've spent so far yes yep okay we'll still be monitoring that yeah explain to me where the 140 kids went so we had not saying you're like the crystal ball and know exactly but do you think it's it's mainly kindergarten or something yeah so 530 seniors are graduating and we projected about 409 coming in so that's a hundred and you know 20. I said that there was 423 or something when we started this meeting well you're aggregating are you talking about kindergarten are you talking about graduates kindergarten well I thought that we said that there were 400 and
192something to graduate 254. through that went through that's if you look at all components of graduates right yeah I see people start having some kids here so this these projections that you're giving us out to 2030. do you think I'm gonna lose another 500 kids well and that is uh the enrollment projection model is from ehlers and every year it gets updated based on our most recent and on the unfortunate part about that is that's factoring the covet numbers right so as we get here yep so as we get more back into the norm I don't want to say I'm 100 confident in those okay try again any other questions um do you want me to go through everything and then do your emotions or would you like to do the uh we should probably
193take this as a single line item okay well I'll make a motion thank you so we have a motion from director donaldinger with a second from director spear to approve the preliminary 2023-2024 budget as presented any other questions or discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed same sign motion carries thanks on that one Marcy all right next up is the uh fiscal year 24 liability work Compensation Insurance renewal which was a really fun conversation committee so we did we reviewed this at Finance the general liability is an eight percent increase nothing to Earth shattering there and it does include a four percent increase um director dondalinger did ask if we looked at the replacement cost of we have 325 currently what if we looked at 250 and I
194did speak to our rep and he said that the carrier didn't even want to go below 300 in fact if we did then they would adjust our rates district-wide replacement cost for facilities correct because there's no way to Target it to specific facilities you've got a blanket cover the value of the district as a whole you can't like lopsidedly predict that a tornado is going to hit Baxter Elementary you know like um so it's it's kind of complicated how it works and then of course any of you who have had dealt with your car insurance or your homeowners insurance because of covid and supply chain issues replacement costs are higher so we did shop as best we could I feel um DJI you can chime in but I think so too about the best we
195could do Jake came from Tommy and we were talking about trying to say 70 grand on it but that was last week and apparently he must have called you and said that's not going to work yeah yeah but we we aren't comfortable with any higher level of risk to save a few bucks on the off chance that something catastrophic happens to one or more of our facilities yeah fire or something went bad yeah and he did comment you know there hasn't been a rate change since 2019 it's just our value keeps going up yeah so that that's pretty good it's just sort of one of those tail and consequences of the improvements that we did district-wide right so and then cyber you'll see the price uh the premium is going down but we are doing
196an increase in the limit based on a recommendation they recommended two to three we're we're gonna go with the two um and then workers comp you'll see was a a large increase our claims have been up we went from a 1.07 mod to 1.51 so if we have a good year and we have a bad year fall off hopefully that will Trend will start to go back down kind of 20 21 and 21 22. in 1920. those three just got us if you look before right we're like 80 000 or something last time I looked and then like you were saying because there's some governance and oversight from your department and you might put you on the spot but that we feel like we've gotten better control of that than we maybe had three or
197four years ago so yeah so if you're looking for approval on that motion second all right we have a motion from director Donald or the second from Director award to approve the fiscal year 24 liability work comp insurance renewal is presented any further discussion hearing none those in favor say aye aye aye opposed same sign motion carries thanks Marcy and next up is the contract for audit Services uh with CLA uh for the fiscal 23 audit so uh this also went before the finance committee and it is an increase from last year so the recommendation was to bring it to the school board but then next spring go out for bid and um see if we can get a not to exceed per director Don delinger because I was pinch hitting for a Director award
198on this committee um I think you've been on this committee the year before um first of all the total cost of the audit as presented was like 36 000 plus some hourly stuff that could come into play exactly actually for an audit of 100 million dollar budget is is a really good deal um in the realm of audits um so we were very very comfortable recommending that we stick with them for a year just because if we switched Auditors this year um Mary who does our audits has done our audits previously and has some intrinsic knowledge of how our Beast operates right so there's some efficiencies in a process that reduces the overall hourly cost associated with chasing rabbits around in that audit and then to look at it next year if only to keep
199CLA honest to go out to bid again just as a side note Bergen kdv was with one we were going to go out to bid with last year I can't remember I think they bid yeah they just got sold uh this week so it could be there but um I would say again I don't want to speak for you DJ but I feel very comfortable with this as president yeah I'm fine like make a motion to accept a second all right we have a motion from director Donnelly or the second from director Spirit who approve the contract for the fiscal year 23 audit services with Clifton Larson Allen any further questions or discussion hearing none those in favor say aye aye aye opposed seems sign motion carries and last of the mercy show here would
200be the approval of the Northern Pines Contract for 2023 2024 as presented um only thing to note on that there is no price change on the general Services the win time is going down and then the social work services at BLC is going up but that is paid for with neglected and delinquent funds so similar to its title funds of course it is um I'll make a motion to accept it em from director Ward to approve the Northern Pines Contract for 23-24 as presented any further discussion hearing none those in favor say aye aye opposed same time motion carries thank you thanks Marcy thank you Mercy thank you everybody this was a marathon oh stop we actually get done now though so yeah up from there we just have committee meeting updates to go through
201real quick um so on the curriculum and instruction staff development uh director spear uh so we covered off on the local literacy plan the acamp plan and the new curriculums that you heard tonight and those were kind of the meat and potatoes of that meeting so covered it next up is long-range planning and Facilities PJ oh we met with Reed director TC and uh went through some stuff you know they wanted to get some stuff done with the sports fields and uh we've got some uh ltfm issues that we need to work on and uh with Washington and zones like that we'll be back everyone will be back in there in October um we might be able to have board meeting there and September August September but other than that it's rolling right along they're
202working from the top down they're cleaning it carpet's going down painting's getting done so that thing's coming around yeah you and I walked that building out too long ago yeah it didn't look like that though no it didn't look that good yet but it's coming so and then uh we just kind of laid out a list of long-term things that we'll have to get more familiar with and the finance deal we've pretty much have been through all the financing tonight so I think you know all that all right uh next up is informational so Sarah with the Brainerd Public Schools foundation so the Brainerd Public Schools Foundation group had their end of the year Retreat and so we celebrated all of the the great things that have happened this year for the the grants and
203the scholarships and the funding and events and it was nice to to recap and revisit some of those great things we wished Jason Atwater and Katie Hokinson well they're stepping off the board so we'll be recruiting a couple new members and Matt holmstrom takes over as president of that group with Nick haglin as vice president Jason gunriger and um they will be putting out a job description for the hiring of still to be determined what the what the title of that'll be but some sort of events coordinator to join that group so doing great work thank you Sarah next would be Equity task force will be a light one because I think we've had board meeting since the last time we met didn't we or no was there another meeting yeah great well I must
204have missed it she I think you might have been there but we just it was just kind of a wrap up so there are plans being made with area churches and non-profits to plan events for indigenous people's day in October the group continues to explore ways to create inclusive and welcoming language training on responding to bullying and harassment situations for student and staff representatives of this group intend to present a summary of the recommendations that this task force has made for social emotional behavior supports to the board in July or August and our task force is really supportive of 40 staff recently completed four days of restorative practice training on using circles to build community and relationships in the classroom according to Candace Burkhart she said every participant has unanimously said they would recommend this
205training to a colleague we had representation from every District site from EC through Gray 12 and then further discussion we'll continue as this task force plans for the future work of this committee as it relates relates to the district's strategic plan and our priorities yeah I would say on that restorative practices training I was fortunate enough to be able to address that group before they started their training that morning and it was really cool to see the um kind of the unique um sort of diversity and complexion of the group as a whole is a really eclectic group of people that chose to come voluntarily and partake in in that training I think it's it's going to be fascinating to see where we're able to go with that with partnering with mde on some of
206that stuff um and then I guess uh anything else Michelle no okay then next up is Business Services report with Marcy again it's gonna note on the financial report the only thing that is an outlier is community ed same story different day um look at pre-pandemic levels 1920 we were at 74.12 so we're just we're getting back into the norm that's it any questions thank you superintendents report Dr Han uh just graduation was fantastic was one of the best nights ever so just again shout out to the amazing staff that make great things happen for our kids think about the hundreds that it takes every single day to get one kid from pre-k all the way to graduation so I'm just very grateful um we have lots of work ahead it's an extremely busy summer
207there won't be much rest I'm looking at our administrative team who look extremely tired but they're going to keep plugging away this summer with us summer school started today uh saw lots of smiles and was really fun to watch the little kiddos jump off the bus and um excited to be back at school and I was a resounding yes so we have summer school and credit recovery and lots of things running through the month of June I want to personally thank Tony Flowers tawny's been with us 17 years has made uh boy is the world of Early Childhood changed in 17 years and you've navigated those changes extremely well it used to be that kids could come and play and take a nap and now when they come into Pre-K we make sure they can
208do math and write and read and keep pushing them so and we've grown immensely like you said I think director Ward talked about you walk in that building it's an extremely busy building so Tanya you can't thank you enough I hope you fail resignation and come back and support us not that I want anybody to fail but you can fail on that come back but then I'd like to welcome Martha Smithson Martha Smithson will be stepping into that role and taking over leadership of our Warrior Early Learning Center so we're excited for that and I do say With all sincerity so if you look at this team that's still awakened and with us there's a lot of work and a lot of responsibility to make Brainerd Public Schools run um and if you look at
209everything that took place this year we made it to that finish line from Transportation I'm looking at you Fran and the three to four o'clock in the morning to the eight o'clock at night as we navigated that principal so our kids come with more unique needs every single day and you're responding well teaching and learning every day is changing so I appreciate that everybody takes all of us and I would like to say boy Summers here and we're gonna rest a little bit but we're going to be busy so very grateful for all of them and the work they're doing on behalf of our students and our families and community of ISD wanting more thank you Heidi I won't read through all of the future meetings just a couple of notes in here I believe
210the equity task force meeting for tomorrow was canceled it was uh and I also believe the board retreat's showing 8 30 a.m oh actually we are not are we not I think we're starting a.m 11 A.M and we're at the Chamber of Commerce there's a conference room at the brainer Area Chamber of Commerce next to Walgreens no yeah yes like right next to Ace Hardware um and that's I believe uh the open agenda for now so with that said motion no two did your clothes nope I I'm entertaining a motion to go into closed session uh first a motion from director uh donaldinger sorry it's getting late did somebody second oh second second from director Brecken uh all those in favor signify by saying aye motion carries and so we will vacate the room and
211go