001we'll start with roll call please here Michelle Bracken here CJ gunlinger here on Warren here I'll cross them thank you we're going to depart from procedure just a little bit tonight before we do the Pledge of Allegiance it's my understanding that we we had a stellar applicant for a staff position within the district and I'd like to bring that individual forward so the board can ask a few questions if that's okay is there a Dylan pakula in the facility tonight Mr pakula would you be so kind as to come down here please so director Boyles if I can I received a video Last Friday you can sit down if you want to Dylan that's fine wherever you want and we just thought it was important that you see so we've been talking about teacher recruitment
002retention and this video came to me Friday from a nice young man willing to apply so if you can play his video [Music] um so I thought it was important that you meet this young man good job yeah you're pretty much overqualified but we're gonna talk to you anyway and further over qualification is you know we don't normally talk to people that are seven or younger but that three quarters is a big deal so it's good to know that you're here so I did talk to some of these other people here on the school board um and we we briefly discussed uh bringing you on as the assistant superintendent um but as it turns out we have some budget problems so we're really not able to do that right now so we thought if it
003was okay with you what we would do uh is we would we would hire you for this evening to take on a very important task for this meeting does that sound like something you'd be interested in doing um it's a very critical part of every school board meeting that we do and we really need your help with it sound good all right um if I may from the board um this is not an official vote so we won't have a motion but um with all those in favor of Dylan assisting Us in the Pledge of Allegiance tonight uh that are in favor of that please say aye aye aye those opposed all right you're on the hook now my man so first order business I need you to come forward we have your staff badge
004so there you are all right so we have a flag right here do you want to turn do you want to get it started on the Pledge of Allegiance would everybody please join us please and whenever you're ready [Music] myself [Applause] that's cool all right I'll entertain a motion to adjourn [Applause] all right now onward and upward Dylan at any point you want to jump in and take this chair spot you just raise your hand and we'll see what we can do sound good also if I can editorialize it's nice to see so many faces out in the crowd tonight um it's been a while since we've had that much non non-staff at a school board meeting it's always energizing to see people from the community out here I really it helps us when we're
005doing these meetings so thanks for coming wherever whatever you're here for we appreciate it so we'll move on to the approval of the agenda as presented I do not believe this was amended correct correct motion second we have a motion by director Donnelly or a second by director spear any discussion hearing none all those in favor opposed same sign motion carries all right onward two recognitions for this evening okay we're going to split this one up uh director heidman we'll start down at your end if you want to take that first section and then we'll just go forward member to board member and run through these recognitions if that's okay yeah um congratulations to the two Brainerd knowledge bold teams over 1 000 teams originally competed and we're and 48 were selected to compete for
006the state championship Brainerd had two teams selected there was only one other District that had two teams selected Brainerd was placed in the Triple A Division and competed against schools with larger student populations Brainerd blue team finished 15th in the state and consisted of sophomore Sam Simpson Amelia cosert jaggered collect paski klakowski Sasha Lytle and freshman Paul Sandberg the Brainerd white team finished 18th in the state and consisted of seniors Sam Matson and Tristan art with sophomores Christy Moore and freshman Hattie dunnick and Arabella bozen actually this is the Brainerd speech team correct uh correct well yep okay because that's different on my agenda nope you're good okay congratulations to the Brainerd speech team at the Section 8 double-a tournament last week at Forest View Middle School finishing in third place advantage of the state
007tournament on April 28th our seniors um caddy porridge and creative expression and Max Johnson ding And Jaylee Andresen in duel um max Johnson ding And Jaylee Andresen won a medal at the state tournament they placed eighth in the duo Katie Torres nearly missed the mark to qualify for the finals finishing the seventh place where Fern French and Lydia read a penny in Creative expression and discussion respectively finishing in eighth place for Abigail Smith and Haley Petri Duo and congratulations to the Brainerd area future problem solvers for being the Minnesota state champions seven students will be representing Minnesota in the international competition at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in June they'll compete with other students from 37 States and 14 countries the topic will be currency the students are Scarlett Anderson Owen Brynn Barnes kalista Anderson
008Justin Justice Anderson Isaac Matson Tucker Hansen and Samuel Sandberg congratulations to the BHS Key Club for winning the following annual awards at the district convention third place in the silver division for achievement awards which is a year-long achievement second place in major emphasis award Warrior Day of Service work toys and blankets for heart packing food with outreach program bringing in a speaker for Minnesota towards zero deaths and polar plunge Special Olympics second place silver division in the single service category for the senior center service work and first place in traditional scrapbook and they won the club newsletter award well congratulations to the Brainerd robotics team members for earning all academic honors these students had a 3.9 grade point average or higher will adland Haley niece Nelson Drake small Evan Deboer Isaac Hansen Owen Brainerd Abby
009Brainerd Micah called bursma Jane Jacoby Cole Benton Ethan Dede Ewan that poor guy's got a last name like mine uh Vogel sang and August Vogel saying good job congratulations to the sourcewell leader of excellence and educators of Excellence leader of Excellence Dr Tammy stelmat Brett Baxter principal educators of Excellence Casey Barrett Baxter elementary teacher Jessica Johnson Lowell Elementary teacher Katie Kraft BHS teacher Heather Larson Garfield elementary teacher Lisa Miller Nisswa elementary teacher Tracy Riley LEC teacher and Marty Sauer Harrison Elementary teacher they were all honored Wednesday May 3rd 2023 at a reception hosted by Source wall at the gichi zibi Center for the Arts congratulations to Isabelle roscott BHS senior for being awarded the Minnesota FFA State degree it is a top honor an FFA member can receive on the state level if you're supervised
010agriculture experience SAE was working at Fleet Farm congratulations did the Brainerd Dispatch design and add winners from Nisswa Maddox miles and Bailey Vander Arty congratulations to all the 2023 outstanding seniors who received scholarships Wednesday May 3rd 2023 180 000 worth of scholarships were awarded to graduating seniors from the class of congratulations to the Nisswa April character counts winners they've all shown Great Character and creative and creativity Nelson Walter Sonia Hansen William Johnson Weston Snyder's Flint Johnson Gage biblay Jackson Kuhn Sophia samanski Kennedy sanala Ava grams Cora Parks Gunner Bible Bernita Moorish Landon Walton Nevaeh karner Breck Rosie Caitlyn griseka just meyerdinger Sawyer lemcool Everett gromer Tressa Hedman Connor Tweed Eli Kern and Sylvie Lee and I'm sure I got some of their names wrong so now they've got new ways to pronounce them congratulations and
011that's why you'll notice this chair I timed this so that the two that I read have nobody's names in them foreign so I guess up next is congratulations to all the district writing contest winners Awards will be handed out at the awards ceremony being held May 30th at Forest View Middle School categories include poetry short stories fiction and non-fiction the top three winners in each category for grades kindergarten through 12th grade will be honored congratulations to Brenna deason and Gavin hozel for being named the 23 Brainerd female and male athletes of the Year congratulations to all the scholar athletes honored at the all sports banquet Monday May 1st congratulations to Cameron Anderson and Ellen germanson for winning first place in the Escape The Vape video contest they won 250 dollars each along with Forest View
012Middle School third place winners were Ryan Larson Annabelle Holcomb Smith and Henry Olson thank you to Tonya Tanya Dill 8th grade language arts teacher for overseeing the project Escape The Vape is a PSA video contest where Minnesota 6 through 12th graders can use their voice to raise awareness about the dangers of vaping and expose the shadowy commercial tobacco marketing tactics behind it and congratulations to Fine Arts students of the week April 10th Payton Freeman for photography April 17th Liz sarvey for decoy design and May 1st Lydia Retta Penning for theater then also if you haven't got your dispatch here are 70 seniors that are awardees of the 22-23 Fine Arts Scholars so there's nice color photos of them and uh just so you know at the scholarship banquet when somebody mispronounced a name they were
013told they could collect a prize so I'll re-announce that if your name was mispronounced seek out the school board though they'll make sure you get a prize for that uh such a fun time of year there's a canopy I see Dr stelmark your name's spelled wrong maybe you're eligible for a prize too anyway it's fun to get all of these at the end of the year like this where they come in bunches like this very very very neat to see all the achievements of our uh of our kids all right yes uh director just a shout out to the all sports Bank what uh coach Shane Jordan spoke for 53 straight minutes announcing all of the bios of all the student athletes and that was quite a feat he did a good job yeah he's
014good at that yeah very good okay moving along then I up next is public input I have two is there any other public input if you do you have time to fill out a card and and bring it over to me if you wish in the meantime uh Marty Hawks and if you could please come forward my name is Marty Halverson I know there's been a considerable conversation about lgbtqia plus recently and I received a letter that I thought was important to share with you it's relative also to education and this letter was written by the presiding Bishop Elizabeth Beaton um Eaton of the ELCA uh Evangelical Lutheran Church in America which is the largest Lutheran denomination with over three million uh people she writes as we approach March 31st many people are preparing to
015recognize transgender day of visibility and International Day to celebrate the contributions of transgender people and raise awareness about the deadly injustices that they face as Bishop of this church I am concerned that the rights of transgender and non-binary Americans have been targeted all over the nation nearly 400 anti-lgbtqia plus bills were introduced across the United States in 2022 most of them targeting transgender youth that is twice the number from 2021 and almost eight times the total from 2020. the language in many of these bills attacks the humanity of trans and non-binary people often erasing the dignity that should be afforded to everyone while members of our church hold various convictions regarding gender the teaching of our church supports legislation and policies to protect every person's human dignity and civil rights as Christians we believe every
016human being is created in God's image and we must honor and celebrate God's creation our church teaches that we affirm transgender and non-binary siblings are God's children who are loved unconditionally our social statement Faith sexism and Justice a call to action from 2019 also declares that this church commits itself to advocate for and support laws policies and practices that respect diverse bodies rather than discriminating against objectifying or devaluing them I urge us as people of Faith to love our neighbors care for the vulnerable and marginalized and work for justice and equality we may differ on our opinions on matters related to sexual orientation and general gender identity but we must always uphold the dignity and Humanity of everyone these disagreements do not allow us to accept actions that dehumanize discriminate against or objectify any individual
017or group we must stand together dear Church Faithfully advocating for the full humanity and dignity of all people let us recognize and affirm the humanity of our transgender and non-binary siblings let us advocate for their dignity let us continue to be guided by God's love and compassion as we seek Justice and equality for everyone thank you and Mr ferwick foreign and I'd like to share a brief anecdote from my high school years this is the 60th anniversary of the graduation of high school back at Edison High School Northeast Minneapolis I want to talk about just one teacher who made a difference um we it was an average day in school we walked into our classroom German class teacher was Edna Sorensen she had been there for ever and she had this amazing command of respect
018but we were talking and we were chattering and we were having a great time as students moving into this classroom and blah blah blah chatter chatter the bell rang and we kept everybody all of a sudden Miss Sorensen said what makes you think you have the right to be happy foreign and then she had this huge smile and she said please open your workbook to page whatever whatever and we went on with our class but what an amazing statement school boards don't have the responsibility to make students happy but you have the responsibility to hire Folk teachers like Edna Sorensen who not only know the subject but they know the goal and they challenge students and I just thank you for being the anchors of those teachers who come and give a tremendous amount of
019wisdom to students which pays off into happiness down the road thank you very much right that concludes public comment we'll move on to the approval of the regular school board meetings minutes from the April 10th meeting please some of second all right we have a motion from director Ward with a second by director donelinger to approve any further discussion hearing none all those in favor all right all right post same sign motion carries next up on the agenda is the consent calendar with the hires approved and pending negotiated contracts and agreements with District approved uh acceptable background checks I'll make a motion to approve a second okay we have a motion by director spear with a second by director Brecken to approve any further discussion hearing none all those in favor aye aye opposed same
020sign motion carries consent calendars approved we'll move on to presentations I believe we have uh Mrs harmer and a student Rio to do a presentation for us he's going to help me get it set up and no you'll be presenting yep okay hi um I'm Nicole harmer and behind me here is Rio neifert who's one of my star students from my AP seminar class some of you board members have been lucky enough to be able to see some of the presentations that Rio is actually going to be showcasing for you tonight this is part of the AP Capstone program at Brainerd High School we are in our seven year seventh year of that program at the time when we started it in 2017 2018 we were only one of five schools that had started AP
021Capstone in the state of Minnesota there are now only 23 high schools in our state that offer this program but it is an Innovative program that comprised of two courses AP seminar which is the course that I currently Teach as well as AP research and students who complete both of those courses do receive an additional recognition from the AP college board program with something called the AP Capstone diploma so it puts in this upper echelon of students Nationwide in which students are are learning to develop critical thinking research collaboration presentation argumentative and time management and presentation skills not only needed for college coursework but also for their careers so a lot of my students tend to be also very stem focused it's a way for them to get some of the technical writing and reading
022and presentation skills that they need and Rio recently presented her we call it an individual multimedia report on a specific topic of her choice in which she presented her argument and was part of her AP exam so this was actually part of something that she will submit to the College Board for her score to try to get college credit for this course and did such a phenomenal job that Dr Han asked if we would would showcase Rio's work here today so we will be presenting that for you okay here's your cooker make sure it's all working take it away can you get that done sorry my research question was how can schools best improved house adolescents generally have worse mental health than adults an example of this can be seen in the graph that I
023created at all as shown in Australia a startling 84 percent of University students reported experiencing elevated levels of psychological distress which is a common measure of mental well-being while only 29 of the total population report at such levels this higher rate in adolescence is important because according to kitzro the psychologist students with poor mental health struggle more academically are more stressed and are more likely to give up when they are challenged resilience is most commonly defined as the ability to adapt to adversity according to bastaminia at all resilient people are better problem solvers and better at navigating social situations they are also less depressed and anxious resilience programs such as sources of strength improve students mental health by teaching them how to be resilient and resilience programs once established can easily spread to other schools
024for example this map shows how sources of strength has spread throughout the United States and Canada during its 24 years of existence the dark purple shows already established programs the light purple shows where a program is being established and the black shows where there is no program adult advisors and peer leaders often teach resilience because they have pre-existing relationships with students these relationships help students learn resilience by ensuring ensuring that they feel supported also sources of strength provides its advisors and Leaders with mental health training other resilience programs could use this same model to train their advisors and develop a sense of community within their school according to researchers at the University of Brighton Hart and heaver some of the best methods of teaching resilience are through activities in which students practice problem solving use
025teamwork or build community one of the most significant threats to students mental health is bullying according to Moore and Woodcock researchers at McGuire University bullied students are both more depressed and less happy than their peers which can leave a lasting impact even after bullying stops resilience programs that promote optimism in addition to resilience can produce bullying optimism is a positive outlook on life in his book long walk to Freedom Nelson Mandela discusses how optimism helped him create a positive maintain positivity while in prison according to color Rosso as cited in gornow all bullies tried to dominate their victims similar to how the prison guards treated Mandela therefore Mandela's experienced with optimism is applicable to bullied students more on Woodcock confirmed this connection between optimism and bullying they found that optimistic students are less likely to
026be bullied as well as less anxious this is likely because bullies generally prefer to Target vulnerable students rather than happier more optimistic ones hope is a belief in one's ability to achieve their goals according to Lenz a professor at the University of Mississippi hopeful students are experienced fewer symptoms of mental disorders and were more likely to form positive relationships this is important because a survey of students aged 12 to 14 by Brown and Dixon revealed that students with good relationships and a welcoming Community reported better Mental Health so resilience programs that promote hope would help to foster a positive School community unfortunately there are limitations to resilience when students have a negative attitude towards mental health resilience is ineffective negative mental health attitudes refer to beliefs that negative Health that mental health suffers are weak
027incompetent and unable to take care of themselves students with these beliefs often feel shame for their mental health problems or persecute others for their issues and are therefore unlikely to seek help for their problems however kotera at all found that if students learn to be self-compassionate they are more likely to improve their mental health despite their negative attitudes it's easier to teach self-compassion than it is to change a person's stigma against Mental Health so self-compassion training should be a part of resilience programs this once again demonstrates one of the best qualities of resilience programs despite the name these programs are intended to teach students more than just resilience by combining different traits such as hope and optimism resilience programs offer students various strengths that they can draw on for example sources of strength is almost
028entirely built on this idea can be seen in the symbol for sources of strength a wheel in which each section represents a different source of strength that students can use to maintain their well-being resilience isn't the only solution according to heart and heaver reducing inequalities such as access to food is one of the most effective ways to improve students mental health when students feel secure it is easier for them to focus on their mental well-being unfortunately issues such as food insecurity are often expensive and complicated so they are best solved through larger state or national programs rather than by individual schools they also help only help students while they attend their school while resilience is a skill that students carry with them through their entire lives counseling is another option kids row found that therapy
029decreases stress and makes it easier for students to learn which helps to improve their mental health however it can be expensive according to the psychology today in the United States a single session of therapy typically costs between 100 and 200 dollars additionally therapists don't have pre-existing relationships with students well it's beneficial overall resilience does have weaknesses in the dark side of resilience chamoro permuzik and Lusk explain that some people are too resilient they choose to suffer through difficult situations rather than change it and other characters says resilience can be misinterpreted according to Brown and Dixon's student survey many students believed their mental health was their sole responsibility they believed that if they weren't happy it was because they weren't trying hard enough they didn't know that sometimes resilience isn't enough in addition to being taught
030how to be resilient students must be taught when to be resilient and when to ask for help in summary resilience programs that teach multiple traits such as resilience hope and optimism and use adult advisors and peer leaders are the most effective while they cannot solve every problem resilience programs are cheap adaptable and easily spread to other areas most importantly resilience programs help students quickly allowing time for larger more effective programs such as free lunch for all students to be developed foreign [Music] just to double check were there any other questions that you had about her presentation tonight okay thank you thank you thank you thanks nice job well done well done thank you Miss armor okay thank you well as I look ahead I see we're almost done we'll just have a little bit of
031new business today and I think that we can call it a night uh uh and we're going to start with uh the approval of the American Indian parent advisory committee APAC oh I skipped the budget Parts okay so we have one more presentation yeah I was gonna say I do have one request maybe I could go after the students next time maybe after the budget I think we could have a resilience training yeah there you go um so in your board packet is a projected budget summary for next year we've gone through this with the finance committee and several of you but just want to give you a very brief overview we start with the unassigned deficit of the 625 000. we put in what we are projecting for Revenue which is two percent on
032the Gen Ed formula an increase in the compensatory Aid there is a decrease in the levy Levy is tied to enrollment which is why as our enrollment is going down the levy is going to go down and then also a decrease in the cares fund some of those are ending this year we do have other funds that are still going through 2024 of September and then the projected increase in existing expenses projections and salary and benefits contracted Transportation you'll see later on tonight that agreement is in the on the agenda debt payments and then a decrease in the opeb implicit subsidy cost savings from Replacements staff that are retiring resigning we we put in estimates for what we could potentially get rehires and that's the plug number for right now that's going to continually change
033I mean tomorrow we could get a number of other resignations or retirements so that don't hold me to that number um proposed net expense adjustments so some of the adjustments that we have in next year's budget we can do through attrition resignations realignments trying to reach class size targets as well as other reductions that's the 305. so right now we're sitting at a projected unassigned deficit of about 1.5 million which I want to point out is about 1.6 percent of our annual general fund expense budget then if you look at how will that play into what our current assigned fund balances we have a projected unassigned fund balance at the end of this year of 10 million 4.99 we take that into account we'll be sitting at about 8.9 roughly 9 million in unassigned fund
034balance at the end of next year or 9.64 percent again another topic later on on the agenda is discussing our fund balance policy and what you guys are comfortable with that but that's right now where the projection is at in all of that like like I said it's a very brief overview but you can see I have it broken down positions added certified non-certified total so we're adding 3.14 in there is some sped editions media nurse and then the Welk position that we are adding principal is posted right now and then the positions reduced that is Elementary sections music and sped as well and so with sped you know as kids are moving around you can see some transfers in between they may be moving from an elementary to Forest View Etc so I'm saying
035we're adding sped and we're reducing sped it's because they're going between buildings if that makes sense uh positions replaced so right now there's seven but like I said that number could change as we go along and then big asterisks down at the bottom bottom this is all subject to change based on Minnesota legislative actions so May 22nd this sheet could look totally different but we kind of want to get this in front of you guys so that if there's any questions or concerns you can let Heidi or myself know and then the second page is just by sight it's that same positions added positions reduced but then you can see it's by district-wide Elementary Middle School High School BLC LEC early childhood and the net amount of those so I can add to that so
036when we started I think March we had had conversation so this is kind of that 30 000 foot View at that time and if you remember a year ago we had projected the deficit spending of about 1.8 and you see how that deficit continues to go down we budget very conservatively this budget is being created on a two percent increase so the general formula we know right now in legislation there's talk so five and four and cross subsidied but there's also a lot of other unfanded mandates that may play in so we don't want the very conservative budget proposal so that's what you're seeing is that conservative part where the the deficit is increased slightly is we were looking at reducing four Elementary sections we've only reduced two because of those class sizes starting to
037bounce back up or those grade levels starting to bounce up so that's the difference you're seeing from one we looked at early on in the year to where we're at right now so we're very anxious to see how action comes to fruition but right now there's looks like great funding but at the same point there's a backside of unfunded mandates that if those come through it could be a complete wash and then some so lots happening in these next couple weeks so this this is the same thing that we were looking at the only difference from when we met last time DJ is you 've sit has gone up slightly and that's because instead of four Elementary sections we just reduced two based on number students so that's so we were your original projection was
038625 in the ditch and now we're at a million five for 22 23 we're at 625 this is for 23 24 oh actually so you're taking that yeah that's rolling it over but now last year the same discussion last year we are at 1.8 so now you see it down to 6.625 so that's the ever we considered a balanced budget as long as it's in that one to two percent and right now we're sitting right at 1.6 so and for you new board members then in June is when you would actually approve the budget it would be presented at the June board meeting and it has to be approved by the end of June a budget so so let's go ahead legislation that's going to be a budget Buster um there was we calculated the
03925 an hour but that sense went out um and then we calculated the 7 25 minutes for prep for teachers to 17 with all of them it was around 7 million now we're looking at the unemployment the where the employer and the employee split the 0.7 percent so it'd be 0.35 it's around 200 000 for us so that won't be state funded then that's correct not that yeah nothing I've seen correct so there's lots of you know again things are going in and out of bills and now they're in committees so these next couple weeks hopefully we'll get a much more solid picture of funding so when we present the budget in June it should be identified with what as long as they do everything within session I know msba they were really pushing for
040State funding of that unemployment stuff [Music] and they pull that out so it pulled the unemployment out no it's still moving forward but what happened in the original Bill there was funding behind it now what happens is in order to fund it it would be split between the employer and the employee so there's not State funding coming behind it cool lots of unknowns right so basically this 600 000 from last year is going to carry over into our budget next year correct or is that going to go away when we look at this in June it's going to say we're going to be 900 000 in the tank so it's the last year when you guys were a million eight how much did you carry over uh we carried over um let's say the year
041before it was like 1.2 or something like that I'd have to go back and look so again we we budget conservative and shows the deficit and as the year goes on you start to see this so that 1.8 is now at this point in the year is down to 600 by the time we wrap up everything June 30th it'll probably be less than that 600. and then it rolls over so that it's like we're flying the plane as we're building it with whatever the state funding comes through so just let me get this straight so you guys projected 1.8 but 1.2 carried over from the year before so you pretty much projected 600 000 and now you've come in at about six hundred thousand and that 1.8 was rolling you know the prior year putting
042in all our assumptions the revenues expenses so it grew and then we had to make reductions and we got it down to that 1.8 so every year we we take carry forward what our budget is and then we've put in our assumptions and if we need to make reductions we do or don't and then we come up with what we present to the board it'd be really great some year to have money to do things Yeah well yeah it's hard to create a budget when you don't know what decisions are going to be so you do the best you can and like I said we've built a very conservative budget is what's being presented to you right after you said so right My Hope Is that funding comes through and some unfunded mandates go away
043and like I said it'd be really nice to add something or build something besides a building any other questions no what useful context for the policy discussion a little bit later on and I'm sure there will be more questions at that point thank you thanks Marcy thank you thank you now we can move forward with new business it's our first action item for this evening is the approval of the APAC or American Indian parent advisory committee vote of non-concurrence response as presented um and then I'm not sure who's presenting both of us both of you okay so Michelle and I will speak a little bit to this and if there's additional questions we might pull some folks in but we wanted to start off in putting together our response to the American Indian parent advisory
044committee members vote of non-concurrence in March we we wanted to reciprocate with the Gratitude and acknowledge the collaboration that that group brought forward and we started our recommendations with a list of thank yous and just acknowledging the great work they've done in bringing programming into the schools and assisting with with so many of the things that we wanted to make happen for those students and so we wanted to acknowledge that and also offer a gift that would be a tree that we can plant in collaboration in the school Forest to represent that collaborative spirit in which we want to come together and so the other piece of that is there were four recommendations and Michelle's going to speak to those in a second but we wanted to add a fifth we really felt like this
045process doesn't that how it's set up you know by the state doesn't necessarily allow for collaboration and so we want to suggest a recommend recommendation for next year that the groups that get to contribute to this process don't do it in separate rooms that we do it together and knowing that we have the same goals and we want to accomplish the same things for these students and so that was our fifth recommendation is that we come together on that and Michelle if you want to speak to the other four that'd be great so the the APAC gave us four recommendations and Sarah just spoke to one that we decided to add so the first recommendation our response to that and I think you'll understand what the recommendation was by our response but if you have
046questions feel free to to ask us so recommendation number one is the district is excited about the opportunity to apply for and participate in the mde dream catcher project next school year in order to reduce special education disproportionality of American Indian students and to provide our special education staff with deeper cultural knowledge of issues impacting the special education process the second recommendation is the district also plans to provide professional development on in indigenous cultural practices next January 2024 for all staff the district will continue to partner with indigenous presenters and trainers to build professional learning into the curriculum in other class in other classroom methods such as the use of restorative practices recommendation number three is for future hiring involving positions paid for through the American Indian state or federal funds the district will invite
047the aipac chair to participate in the hiring panel and to provide input the final hiring decisions will be made by the district and recommendation number four Brainerd Public Schools welcomes the creation of language and culture classes for our students and Apex consultation on this matter we're also very excited to explore working with potential post-secondary education options offered in this area by tribal colleges as well are there any questions I have a question uh and record did we did you guys change recommendation number two from what we got what's in the packet um about well this smudging thing you know we've been contacted about the smudging and I really don't have a problem with the smudging I'm just concerned why it's happening in our school why doesn't it go outside or you know I I'm fine
048with smudging I just don't know I just think it's a little over the top and people are complaining and kids are complaining and I don't think it's something we can't handle but I think it's something that maybe should be taken outside I don't know if that's a big deal or but it just seems a little odd to me that we're burning tobacco and sage and things in the school people are upset about it and I think it I don't think it's a big loss to somehow keep everybody happy because I think that's what we're trying to do right is just keep everybody included and and a place to belong that's right he says their school model and I don't I don't think that's a I don't think it's an overreach so is there any way
049that we can accommodate that without having to do it in the classroom Heidi not part of this specific recommendation and I know we have um other guidelines in place to acknowledge and care for that and and kind of talk through what that process looks like going forward so that's separate from this but we if we want to bring that back to a separate meeting well I'm about to set the wrong stuff because mine reads that recommendation two the district is beginning to work on administrative procedure for smudging with involvement from aipac and would like to accompany this is education for staff and students and that is a separate to that work continuing so that com the conversation that we're having is being had is this is our commitment to having that conversation by saying this
050in the resolution so this resolution really doesn't have any teeth to it is that right batifa this is just a this is our wish list This Is Us committing to the recommendations that the group brought forward to us and us saying we'd like to be a partner in this work okay correct so the question you're asking DJ is specific to the procedure which is going to be discussed currently we have it outlined in policy but some of the questions that have come up we're looking at guidelines around that but as shared we've shared the policy and we shared the guidelines with the Clean Indoor Air Act in those pieces so but what we've asked in our our APAC committee has asked us for more procedural guidelines with that but right now everything we do aligns
051with policy so but further discussions being had collectively together and that's what's important school board and APAC so the resolution today is is committing that we're going to continue in that conversation it doesn't take any action on policy or guidelines so said another way don't want to put words in anybody's mouth but it creates framework and sort of directional guidance on where to take the conversations as opposed to getting into the nitty-gritty of the how-to exactly right so my question is then why are we voting on them resolution of concurrence that we're actually voting on to say that we acknowledge what they brought forward what the Apec group brought forward and to say that we're ready to collaborate and and work on the recommendations that they brought forward to help us get to a place
052where we can be in concurrence excuse me sorry as a school board your record originally was for but you're recommending five there's five recommendations in response to that vote are not concurrence and that's what's being presented director Ward thank you Mr chair isn't this part of a state process that we are following yeah correct okay I just want to make sure that that's on the record as well that this part of the state process that you know that we do this and uh thank you for the work that you did on the resolution I'll move the uh do we do we need to uh remove it I'll move the acceptance of the resolution with apet Mr chair director just a couple of questions uh recommendation number three um it appears that somebody from the committee
053is going to be part of potentially the hiring process giving recommendations is this is this a practice that we use in other highering procedures within the district or is this just something that we're recommending under this resolution so we did it as a hiring prep to this position student liaison and aipac has requested that since it's going to be a liaison for their students that they participate in that sure so that was one of the requests that came out it's okay last question correct so what what what is the liaison what is their position what do they do liaison with us that's the point of order because I moved moved the resolution I mean it has been a second so we can have further discussion okay we have a motion in a second and now
054further discussion I mean um I am the indigenous student cultural liaison for all of Brainerd School District it's a pleasure to officially meet all of you and I would like to say that I am so if you look up the meaning of a liaison it's a goal between it's somebody who acts as a bridge between uh two Nations a bridge between two people two parties um somewhat of a mediator um somewhat of a um cultural integrator um I like to call myself a little bit of magic because I do some pretty miraculous things when it comes to bridging gaps between our staff and our students um and one of the things that I do here is help our students acclimate to Western education system I help our staff to understand um epigenetic traumas historical violence
055things that are impacting our students our Native American our indigenous our first nation students and their families as well so um that's kind of what I do in a nutshell um I know you were asking about that um and um I'm open to answering some questions I don't want to take up a whole lot of time but um I did want to um just thank you guys for being willing to work with our dream catcher program um you will see a relief in our sped programming as a result of collaborating with us on that we look forward to this partnership on a professional development level so I know there's a lot about our people my indigenous people the anishinabe the Lakota Dakota we have Cree we have Crow here we have indigenous people from other
056parts of Turtle Island and we have them all in this learning area and I know that there's a lot that the community here does not understand about us even though we are the First Nation people and we are the caretakers of this land and we're looking forward to helping the staff have a better understanding of who we are and what we what we have been through and what we're going through and the process that we are going through now to um better Our Lives better our communities together um I wanted to uh thank you for that continued collaboration with us um I know change is difficult sometimes but change is always good Creator brings changes um when we need them the most um and and then I just wanted to touch one more um Heidi
057our um Miss Han um so APAC we are asking for the involvement in the hiring process for not only our indigenous liaison so that would be like a position much like my my own um but other positions where um the primary funding for that position comes from our indigenous education funds not from the general education pool funding but this is something fully self-contained we pay for these positions out of our own funding and therefore that is why we are asking to have some say so or some impact on that hiring process so um before I step away and I'd like to thank you one more time for your time for committing to being willing to have these open conversations um is there any other questions before I step down Dr heidman yeah in recommendation number
058four it appears to me that we're going to be creating uh a new language class yes um so the primary languages of the people um that are known to have occupied this land is predominantly uh Lakota Dakota and Ojibwe which is the language of the anishinabe people that is my people I have already started um minor integration into our indigenous students Club um meetings which we hold once a week group where I teach our students about um culture so the indigenous culture um the significance of teachings that go along with certain regalia so we don't call our clothes outfits we call them regalia to respect for what they what they mean when we wear them we're wearing our we are wearing our ceremonies when we put these on and there's certain teachings that go with
059all of this stuff um and so I'm also teaching the students language and most of us don't speak our own language I know my mother was a first language speaker she spoke Ojibwe Moen she spoke Ojibwe in the home um but because she was a residential school survivor she no longer felt comfortable teaching that she was a teacher of the language but she wouldn't teach her own children I'm breaking that cycle I'm breaking that chain and I'm allowing our students um in their own process to reconnect with their identities through language culture and we're hoping to have this in place as a curriculum as I work on my finishing off my student teaching credentials as a cultural liaison so thank you for that so this class is it going to be mainly directed at indigenous
060students or is it going to be other students will be able to take this class I think director heidman some of that is the work ahead that we're going to be exploring over the next year okay starting to look at what a course might look like and we'll do that before we have an excellent partner partner centers for excellence yeah and starting to meet with nijou and I and talking about what other courses look like in other districts and in some districts that's offered just to indigenous students and some in districts that's offered to other students so something that we're definitely exploring and researching right now don't get me wrong I'm not I'm not against this resolution I'm just my nature as I ask a lot of questions so one last one is this a
061more of a culturally responsive resolution or is it educational in nature and is it going to improve is it going to improve the proficiencies of indigenous students I would say yes and yes as the young lady had talked about resiliency programs I would consider this to fall under that umbrella that category of resiliency um you know you think about the indigenous people and um they have to be one of the most resilient people that come to my mind that we have the um blessing of being in contact with on a daily basis we have seen that when um students feel like they belong students know their identity and they know who they are and where they come from and they have that um increase in self-esteem they have an increase in communities and understanding of
062um I know who I am and I know what what I'm supposed to be here for Creator put me here for a reason and I know what it is we see their education levels right as we see their dependency on other programs decrease because they are becoming more resilient it is also an education based program for our students it is relevant that they learn a lot of these things our languages are dying and we're Reviving we are revitalizing our languages and therefore they are learning new things they're learning new ways to be um wonderful brilliant creative amazing people and I think anything that is able to do that in our community is going to boost our community as a whole you have students who are coming in and they don't know who they are they
063they don't in other languages they don't know their culture and they're learning how to make moccasins they're learning you know what's the meaning of the shell they're learning um what their parents have gone through and ways to break that intergenerational trauma they are learning so many things that we thought were lost and they're not so I would say that it's it's a collaboration of both things coming together both educational and and a resilience type program thank you thank you can I just add something to with the the dream catcher project that we are committing to um applying for and um participating in um will definitely impact our educational practices oftentimes students from another culture like the like an American Indian student might struggle with some issues with learning and some of those could be cultural
064so we need to train our special education teachers as they're looking at these students and determining what would be best in terms of an intervention that were that were ruling now that it's a cultural issue rather than um than it is a learning problem and so that's what the dream catcher project is designed to do it's to train our our staff to be able to explore um what what actually is impacting this student because there's a disproportionate amount of students that are being that are qualifying for special ed when really it's a cultural difference not a learning issue right thank you I have one last question so where do you office or do you go to all the schools I'm everywhere without you what you do so primarily I office out of Brainerd High School
065um and I frequent Forest View Middle School pretty often I also work out of with some students at the mlap program I Am Here There and Everywhere actually I um I collaborate with the principals for the elementary schools and I'm planning on expanding my horizons next year oh cool all right thank you thank you thank you half of the APAC committee we do see you and we do appreciate you and we are very thankful that it feels like we're making progress it really does thank you thank you okay so we have a motion uh from director Ward and the second I I missed a second no from director spear uh for this resolution further discussion okay hearing no further discussion this is a resolution which I believe calls for a roll call vote yes here
066yes John Moore yes yes resolution passes we'll move on to the next item for Action which is the approval of the k-4 elementary music curriculum uh with director Martha and others and Entourage all right thank you for the opportunity to bring to you the K4 Elementary music curriculum recommendations that have been generated by our teachers brought to the district advisory committee as with all curriculum work it starts with fulfilling the promise of the standards standards are what we guarantee are what students are going to know and be able to do the other key component to curriculum work is ensuring that it's guaranteed and viable no matter what address you're coming out of in the morning and what room number you're going into when you get to school you're going to get the same high quality
067education that's what we mean by guaranteed viable viable means that we are capable of sustaining this with the research and the expertise that we have there are four questions that guide all curriculum work that we do first question is what do we want students to know and be able to do very simple it's a question of outcome it's a question that's answered by the Minnesota State academic standards second question is how will we know that they know it and can do it question of assessment the next two questions are how we respond to student learning as evidence of learning appears to us so what do we do if a student already knows and can do prior to teaching it's a question of enrichment what do we do when a student still cannot and still does
068not know after instruction which is a question of intervention or a question of differentiation so Ms Lee and Miss palowski who are representing the Elementary music teachers are going to walk through their work their priority standards and how they're fulfilling the promise of the standards for our elementary students thank you Mr murtha and thank you to the board and superintendent Han for having us um I am Jill Lee I'm the music teacher at Baxter Elementary School one of the music teachers at Baxter and this is Jenny pawlowski from Harrison Elementary School and we will tell you what we've been working on so starting with the structure of our program in K4 music and the elementary schools we have six Elementary buildings and one to two teachers at each building and all of our K4 students
069receive music three times a week for 25 minutes but there's a little bit of difference at Lowell so most of our elementary schools are exactly three times a week 25 minutes per class Lowell has a slightly different schedule where they have 25 minutes every twice every three days so they have a little bit different schedule but their time still equals at least 75 minutes per week our music strand or our music standards have five strands in Elementary music and actually all the way through so the first strand is the foundations that is actually integrated into all of the other standards so that would be all of the things to know about music the second strand is create so making music arranging music composing music the third standard is perform singing playing instruments and we have
070the fourth standard respond so responding in various ways to music and the fifth standard is also Earth's strand is also integrated into the others and that's connect so connecting to the other things that we're learning other curriculums and outside culturally and in our own lives outside of school so we chose to prioritize and create our unit plans based on France two three and four and then strands one and five are connected into all of those and because music is not set up as we do this unit and then this unit and this unit everything kind of is interconnected we chose to make our unit plans based on these strands Mr Martha already kind of told you the process here first we prioritize benchmarks then we write student-friendly learning targets we create assessments based on those
071prioritized benchmarks and we select resources to be able to effectively teach those I'm actually going to skip and come back to this slide when we were prioritizing benchmarks one of the main discussions that we had was what were the measurable benchmarks and what made the most sense to measure so strand three perform is a good example because standard five is develop and refine artistic techniques and work for performance and then standard six is make artistic choices in order to convey meaning through performance we chose to prioritize standard five and the benchmarks that go with it from kindergarten all the way through fourth grade because we can truly measure those artistic techniques and how students are refining and developing those versus it's really difficult to measure a student's personal artistic choices when they're trying to convey
072meaning so this slide gives a an example of learning targets that would be student friendly to go along with benchmark um 3.0.3.5.1 demonstrate moving singing and playing instruments with others so some benchmarks that we might see in an elementary music classroom for kindergarten would be I can sing with my class I can dance when the music plays and stop when the Music Stops I can keep a steady beat with the music and even though this Benchmark doesn't directly talk about study beat we know that that is a huge foundational skill for any performance so going back then this slide shows the skill growth that we would hope to see from kindergarten all the way through grade four in this example are singing alone rubrics and that was another discussion we had to have is how
073do you measure something like singing so we created rubrics for singing and playing so that we can truly measure the students performances and then one other example of our assessments that we created we've got second grade and fourth grade for um the create strand and this would be from standard to Benchmark one and this will just show the difference between how students would move from creating a melody in second grade to fourth grade actually putting it on the staff and writing the music and then we have a selection of resources that all of our elementary schools have and use regularly and that's all I have any demonstration [Laughter] I would say it was an outstanding presentation primarily because you started it and ended it with a graphic of a saxophone that's all I really had
074to say about that I think this you guys did a nice job because I think we just take things for Advantage yeah that kids go in and they enjoy music and they learn to love music but then you think about the work that our educators are having to do around standards and then like you said the hard work of how did you measure it and so I think you gave excellent examples of how do you take a kindergarten and measure these steps compared to a fourth grader I hope Michelle wasn't wanting us all to dance but again it's taking those standards you prioritize and then breaking them down so at any point in time what are you teaching how are you teaching it how are you assessing it happens in every subject this is a
075great example of music and this is brand new for us so I think all of us since we're sort of piloting you know all of our assessments right now there will be some changes and we're figuring out what's working well what's not working well all those things but we we collaborate really well together and so I mean our whole team is pretty pretty great that way so I think as we think about that in a broader curriculum sense I mean one of the things that we're striving for is consistency right and you know that was one of the things I think I saw right away when you were talking right there is you know collaboration and consistency and looks really good the fourth graders can write a melody glad I got out of there [Laughter]
076we would be more than happy to send my sister send one of my sisters in director Hedman is actually started in my classroom so they're high energy classes the kids love it I mean it's fantastic some of them may not go on to be musicians and whatnot just high energy and I think it the kids the kids really enjoyed and I know you guys are working your tails off to make things even better so well and it's I don't I mean I don't think [Music] last year when you're trying to create the next Mozart you know if our hope is when they leave they think we're trying to really positive experience you know it's something and that all the learning they're not even necessarily aware of everything they've gotten from it you know but that
077they have a positive memory or experience with it and so that they maybe will want to continue with it nothing else is a positive for them it's like I said it's high energy and the kids love it I'm you're right sometimes when you're having fun you forget about what did I just learn but it's it's a blast in our elementary team especially we like to talk about kind of the 30-year plan like we want our students might not become professional musicians but we want them to be able to experience music and appreciate music throughout their life and if they have a baby that they're rocking someday we want them to be able to sing to their child or be able to clap the study beat at a baseball game so do we still have like
078right grade school choirs Middle School choir Middle School like start in fifth grade is that the deal sixth performing group Stars our excellence in music is unbelievable though when you go to these concerts and band and choir and I mean this is where it all starts these young kids get them interested it's cool well thank you very much thank you thank you again for having us foreign so we have a uh a motion by director donelinger and a second by director Brecken to approve the k-4 Elementary music curriculum as presented any further discussion or questions hearing none all those in favor opposed same sign motion carries thank you very much oh thank you we gotta get that dancing stuff out of there next time it is one of the strats next up is the approval
079of the five through twelve music curriculum as presented unfortunately Mr Summoners who did a wonderful job of presenting to the district advisory committee uh earlier last month is unavailable tonight so I am left brewing for the presentation there's no way I can do it with the same Flair uh that he can so we're gonna be very Bare Bones what you're going to find here is that they've done the vertical work beyond what the elementary has done they're working within the same family of Standards they're looking at the grade level indicators of the benchmarks and they're stacking them up so what you see with them is they're doing the same work and asking the same questions about what are the priority standards what are the standards of Leverage one that helped them prepare students to move
080from one level of expectation to a greater level and also as the elementary team shared out what we call a dispositional learning Target that there's something that they love or carry with them in terms of relationship to the contents it's not just unique to music so they may not become the next Mozart but they love music or music is a part of their life it enriches their life it's something they can share whether they're sharing through performance or sharing through appreciation so do you see that same work continuing through the the secondary level we have lots of students who participate in our band programming or all our music programming throughout the throughout the district whether it's band Orchestra or choir at multiple levels uh we're looking at significant percentages of the students Mr somebody's going
081to quote you the percent in any given moment that I cannot do but I can produce the totals for you here um one other element of consistency in their assessment is they have a common rubric for all the standards at every level across each genre whether it's band choir or music or band choir or orchestra because the art standards are the same for the five categories of art music dance theater visual arts and media arts the only thing that's unique are the benchmarks those grade level indicators of what learning looks like within that framework because of that they're able to create rubrics that allow them to have a vocabulary for the Arts a vocabulary of Correction a vocabulary of inspiration that moves students up a progression of Greater challenge throughout the benchmarks and that consistency
082means students can anticipate how they're going to be assessed which gives them more control over their own learning and empowers them to take responsibility for their learning finally we have a significant number of offerings at the high school level for a variety of musical interests some of these are stack classes where there are prerequisites for the next ones and again the numbers for the high school the common rubric and any questions you may have music and elective in nine through twelve they're required to have one art alike one art credit for graduation music is frequently or if not the most popularly way to fulfill that and then grades five through eight how many minutes of music do they get in a week it depends on the year okay um it it there's there is a
083gap in okay I pull up the fifth grade slide all students take uh fifth grade music it's on a regular rotation uh it's probably every other day opposite of Fayed grades six and seven band Orchestra and choir are definitely rotation courses that they're part of what they do all year long okay okay um they're not going to get it every single day at least not at the current format that would not occur until you're at the high school level 9 through 12 where you're taking the full course before graduation credit any other questions I'll entertain a motion to approve some of second we have a motion from director heidman with a second by director board to approve the five through grades five through twelve music curriculum as presented any further discussion hearing none all those
084in favor oppose him sign motion carries thank you director Martha thank you much [Applause] thank you we now have Angie Bennett coming forward for approval of the revised insurance premiums as presented yeah I dug up Marcy with me because she knows our numbers as We Know you're not connecting so you might see um all the pages on the left here but hopefully it'll help me navigate through here so we did a brief presentation that should have been in all of your board packets regarding the insurance premium rate setting for the school district our school insurance plan year is from September 1st through August 31st so what we're looking at is determining what's the percentage increase based on our claims experience will be effective September 1st so we can start the Open Enrollment process for all
085of our staff the student and Ryan is the miracle worker well he got that so the first page obviously I have a lot to cover here so I'm not going to go through step by step but just kind of kind of give you a brief overview especially since there's a lot of new school board members that may not have not been a part of this in the past this is a presentation that is brought to the school board every year based on insurance committee recommendations and so we're going to kind of briefly go over the medical plan types stop loss our current enrollment in looking at the history of such our fund balance in the self-insured pool claims and fund balance data how we determine premium amounts National Insurance Services who's our insurance broker they
086presented some options for us to consider in the last Insurance committee meeting what the impact to the employees are the general fund impact and then the insurance committee recommendation and then any questions and discussions and then hopefully we'll have a recommendation for board action so these are our four core plans um some of you may know that last bargaining sessions we did end up pushing to open up all four plans previous to that they had based on contract or handbook they would only be able to elect to enroll in specific plans so instead of kind of restricting that based on employee group we did open up all the plans this shows what the current premiums are for single and family for those prints this does not mean this is what the employee pays or what
087the district pays that's the full premium our self-insurance fund we currently have a 300 000 stop-loss insurance carrier for those that are not familiar with stop loss it's basically if you have claims in excess of this amount the pool or the fund no longer pays for that claim the insurance carry of the stop loss does and so we last year raised this from 200 to 300 000 and that decreased our amount of administrative costs it paid off for us this school year where we only had one claim that both Rose above the 200 000 line item and also went to the 300 000. so actually we saved money by increasing our stop loss for this year NIS had stated that's typical three out of four times you'll win on this proposition but it all depends
088on what our claim experience is this is our current enrollment and kind of our Trend over the past several years we do have a hundred or 806 employees and retirees with coverage and including dependents that's a total of 2 189 people the current fund balance so basically we have a fund balance that exists due to the premiums paid into the plan so as long as your claims are lower than what the premiums going into the fund your fund balance will increase if your claims are more than what you're getting in premiums your funds will decrease the current Reserve percentage and the reason I have a range is because it really depends on where you're at with the claims number is about 45 to 49 percent funded there are a few schools of thought as far
089as what is a good fund balance from the auditing perspective Marcy always preaches you've got to have three months got to have three months in Savings in case the world ends we have to be able to cover our claims um us and um and speaking with the insurance committee they're feeling more comfortable with a higher range so anywhere from 25 to 45 percent that was from NIS the actual Insurance committee felt most comfortable about that 45 so keeping enough in the reserve so we're not going to see a gigantic increase somewhere along the line where we might be able to dip into that fund balance to kind of offset any double digit increases that may come up this is very difficult to see but we have data from back to 2000. as you go through
090you can see that the total premiums or the income to the fund balance is in the First Column followed by the claims and expenses the red obviously is no good the black is good so it's adding to that fund balance the overall balance and I keep saying balance sorry but how many months that equates to percentage of claims to expense and then the target balance if you were to look at the three month category there and towards the right and the premium changes so you can kind of see that historical measure now the bottom three rows is what we'll kind of dig into a little bit more so this is looking into our Pioneer of 2024 we will be going over a couple different scenarios that was presented by NIS and then I'll bring forward
091the insurance committee recommendation but you can kind of see where in this table where we would land if we chose one of those percentages so when NIS presents their recommendations or their options to us they take into account these factors so the year current year claims and expenses compared to the premium Revenue current level of fund balance and the increase in claims and expenses based on the review of expected administrative fees stop loss premiums current claims historical claims and the average inflationary Trend seen in the health insurance industry so considering those facts factors they presented three different options and I put on the right kind of what the impact to the fund balance would be so 8.9 percent increase they recommending this due to our high level of claims this past plan year we had
092several bigger claims that kind of took over a little bit and we had the one that hit the stop loss but more than typical number of claims so they had recommended at the high end and 8.9 increase this would maintain our fund balance where it's at so that 40 45 to percentage range depending on where we end with the insurance year 7.9 increase would require leveraging some of the self-insurance fund balance at approximately 153 513 and then a 6.9 increase would leverage that a little bit more and would take out of the self-insurance fund three hundred and seven thousand one hundred dollars a lot of bargaining units a lot of benefit and compensation and benefit handbooks everybody kind of works things a little bit differently depending on what the individuals want in their unit they
093may leverage that they want more contribution to their health insurance versus a higher increase to wages some have done the exact opposite so I'm trying to collectively give you a summary then the majority of our agreements what our primary focus has been at single coverage we're going to try to keep you whole so we have it minimum one plan where you don't have to pay anything hopefully more than one plan and so we have written into those contracts or handbooks that if there's an increase to the premiums that the district will absorb that increase so we can continue to have single coverage for each of the employee most of our contracts I would say I would say most two-thirds probably have plan C as their base plan we do have some early on that shifted
094over the high deductible to get a higher increase in salary so we do have some that have Plan G which is a high deductible health plan as their base plan so basically with any of these recommendations the impact to the employee for single coverage is zero there won't be an increase for the employee for family coverage it's a little bit different what we have talked through with all the employee groups is that we're trying to get a little bit of teeth in the game because it's all of our responsibility to keep the fund strong um so we're splitting that increase so let's say we chose you know the nine nine percent four and a half split between the two the district would pick up half the employee would pick up half for Plan B which
095is our richest plan typically the employee will take on the entire premium increase and that's a very rich plan so there's also an impact to the general fund when considering these choices I've outlined this below 8.9 percent well not only or will keep the Insurance Fund whole but will have an increase to the general fund in the amount of 578 500 7.9 we'll have that self-insurance fund Cost Plus 513 500 and the 6.9 would have the additional self-insurance costs that we talked about earlier in addition to another 448 500. when we met with the insurance committee we kind of we try to have representatives from all Insurance Groups or all employee groups to kind of give their input onto not only our plans but also what they feel would be best for their employee groups
096as well as the fund when they brought forward their recommendation their stance was nothing less than a 7.9 we had a camp that was at the 8.9 we want to keep that Reserve very healthy we had some that boy that's going to have an impact on some of my employees I don't not sure about that kind of leveled in between that 7.98.9 percent is where they landed when we consider the impact to the general fund as well as to some of our lower paid employees it is my recommendation I guess I would say is that the maximum would be 7.9 because for our lower paid employees if they have family coverage the higher percentage that they go the more they're going to end up paying for that coverage it's also a big chunk towards the
097general funds so just trying to see where that happy medium is so any questions and then just put discussion and kind of where you guys are feeling comfortable director donalding so these claims are topped at three hundred thousand right for one individual one individual is there a stop Gap that if there was a hundred individuals or 300 000 or is there a it's per individual so it has let's say there's a cancer diagnosis so if the claims towards that diagnosis hit that 300 I understand it's what if we had 100 people hit 300 000. are we are we open I mean is that the liability that we could have the backstop kicks in regardless yep on the one person at three hundred thousand if 200 400 000 medical events they would all the the backstop
098would kick in above 300 000 for all of them yeah yeah but a hundred of them is a lot of money well of course so that's why that's why the there's a hedging that has to happen when we were there must be more 200 to 300 000 you know because we used to have it at 200 000. the most premiums for us are much higher well we must have coverage for total claims don't we well that's where our fund balance comes in so all the premiums for all the plans goes into a big savings account so all the claims under 300 000 are paid from that bucket of money it's just for the high claimants we have the kind of that savings well I understand it's the same thing I do in my business but
099you know in mine we have the same kind of we can't afford three hundred thousand dollar exposures but I'd say 25 000. but then we have a an aggregate that if 10 people hit the 25 000 that's as far as it goes because we buy another policy stop Gap like you're calling it to cover that so I was just curious do we have that yeah so this is the distinction it took me a while to learn this and my day job actually I kind of live in some of this we're self-insured in the district right so completely different ball game there is no provider we're the provider well who is the broker well there is no the broker is NIS who just it helps us navigate the self-insurance landscape so when let's say we have
100a staff member that goes in for a twenty thousand dollar uh cardiac event at the ER the school district writes a check for the 20 grand we use the Medica Network but that's all we're doing is we're using their Network they're not the carrier they're not the insurance provider we're just leveraging their Network we obviously have insurance because we're capped at 300 000. so we have a stopgap insurance am I right when you have an individual event that hits that trigger amount below that it's literally that fun that's fun I mean we are self-insured we are self-insured and they're self-insured we call it a catastrophic backstop yep right right so if you want to think about it through that one so it took me a while to get my head around that because it's it's
101um a lot of what we were talking about in the context last year was trying to figure out how incentivize people moving from the four different plan types that we have because you have to remember the money that goes into that fund that pays those medical expenses is generated from the premiums that the staff and the employees pay yeah that's our income I get it so if we get if we get those enrollments out of balance and everybody all of a sudden tomorrow went into a high deductible plan which has much lower premiums that would cut our revenues into the fund by as much as 60 70 percent and now all of a sudden you have any money to write checks for those events that happen so it's a it's a it's a pretty complicated
102balancing act that has to happen with that fund but the short answer to your question is we only have an outside insurance carrier that kicks in where we're not writing the check when you have that one singular event that hits that 300 000 threshold but there could be five of them right we had one last year and it was a memory serves well in the 700 000 range it was it was significant so you know when we get that then we get reimbursed for that and it pays us 400 000 back into the fund so to Angie's Point what she was saying is statistically if you were going to Vegas and betting on this you're going to bet that you're going to hit that backstop three out of four years and the fourth year you're
103going to have no events and you're going to have paid the premium for nothing like any sort of insurance right so that that's the rationale behind that piece and if you did have a carrier I mean yeah I think you guys have a aggregate total that you can't go over an actuaries and actuary six million some somewhere in there in your policy I think it's I mean it'd be crazy not to I mean if you had some plague or something like that my Lord will just go and toast it'd all go down um do they do any coaching just broker come in and work with everyone that's on the policy have a meeting once a year talk about it yeah like on these hsas you know you can invest these hsas they're just like a
104401k because they're you're taking that out before tax and you know it's kind of a new way of investing money that you don't spend your HSA if you can afford not to I mean is anybody coaching Yeah we actually when we opened up out of the plan we plans we had quite a bit of coaching in regard to HSA and hras because they're very different Vehicles than what you can do with impulse retirement submatica actually came and then further at that time is who we had and they did seminars and webinars and met with people in person and kind of did all of that we do talk about in the insurance committee we meet approximately four times a year and then those the union leadership or the unit leader who attends those is bringing back
105that information the teachers are also planning and do every year some kind of gathering with new teachers as well as existing teachers about the different plans so they can kind of have a better understanding so we've been trying to do a lot of that well it makes a difference I think it does um it's getting more and more complicated more and more expensive it's kind of a big deal and uh you know it's hard to get at least in my world it's hard to get everybody show up especially the single youngsters you know they're just like um but there's important stuff in there especially when you're young because you don't have any claims yep so it's uh you can save yourself some money we got one more question and I'm done I promise Marcy is
106this 513 000 figured into that budget that you gave us tonight or is that gonna go on top of the million five that is part of it is not all of it so like half of it which is basically what it's going to cost us because if we do the eight percent it's half for us and yeah there's 16 different employee groups with handbooks and some are very similar but in some cases the district is contributing as much as north of 80 percent 100 on the single coverage yeah but you got some of it in there anyways yeah but it varies depending on how each of those contracts was negotiated director uh Mr chair um Angie and when uh when I was working here and uh for years um our insurance committee was very very
107active in kind of like what uh don linger was talking about and director boy was talking about um throughout the year not just one time not just you know beginning and end of it but all throughout the year was very good at educating all all units Educators assistants all of us with um for example you know because uh as you said the prems the employees are playing the premiums that you know pay for the program so but we also need to keep try to keep our expenses down so they you know they'd come up with a generic you know use generics and when we have a seminar on it and smoking or diabetes or whatever it was but we and it made a difference it does make a difference when you educate and Coach along
108the line are we still doing that or I mean you said that okay you have reps in the insurance committee I get that I know that I've been there but are they still actively engaged with employees on you know that we need to do better here or there or whatever we're doing better with it I would say Okay um I think what had made it more difficult is everybody was operating under a different playing field so you know teachers only had B and C some people only had G you know so you were kind of it was more difficult to have those more Global conversations Mackenzie who's our benefit specialist who took over for Lisa went around I'm sure you know we've really been trying to push more education out so we have stuff in
109the employee lounges now we do the electronic we have it on the website she talks to people almost daily about insurance options we have intake meetings for every new employee that comes in I know the teachers union is very good at educating their teachers in regard to this we actually I think we had one at the beginning of the year and then I know that Eric Jobe is very good at pushing this information out to the teacher group so we do have educational assistance more than one than attend the insurance committee and again they will push that information back out what we're trying to do is hit it from a lot of different angles so trying to have a benefit Fair trying to you know some people just like to read it some people are
110more visual they need a piece of paper some people want to see a video so we're trying to embed all of those different things because the last thing somebody needs is an email that's sent out once a month telling you something we're trying to make it more engaging so I think we continue to improve on that and now that we're all having the same plans it's a lot easier to do that okay go ahead John um so the age of the employees is that playing a factor at all um I think so we have a lot of retirees on our plan and I would say that definitely impacts it because in a lot of those retirement benefits have now sunsetted in the contract so that'll become less and less but we do have a lot
111of a pretty large retiree population on our plans that could have some impact on it we also though have quite a few younger people starting to come in so we're starting to balance out a little bit more with what we are seeing as people come into the district they're leaning towards that high deductible health plan because they're used to it you know if you come from outside of this District that's pretty much your offer is high deductible we don't there's very few of those comprehensive Plans offered anymore and so we are seeing that and they're also helping to spread the word about the HSA how you can invest you know HRA how that's great for retirement paying for premiums post retirement so there's we're trying to get everybody engaged but I think our overall didn't
112you say after the over the last five years our age has actually gone down a little bit because we're starting to get some of those younger people into our plans Pharmacy Pharmaceuticals not to go too far down a rabbit hole director Ward but um a couple other things with NIS involved right what they do is they bring a variety of other vendors to the table that they have arrangements or access to okay one is pharmaceutical related so there's there's a program that we're talking about or that we're involved with where it's very complicated but the upshot is that the Pharmaceuticals are basically bought out of this com bought by this company in Canada shipped from the U.S to Canada and then essentially then sold back to us at a discounted rate so that's one number
113two is there's these ancillary services that are things like we had one that was in place that the insurance Committee just voted to terminate the relationship it was called Grand rounds before what's it called now included included health so it was like a second opinion service where you could go do these things and the idea the idea there was to mitigate utilization give people the opportunity to check things without having to go to expensive office visits to double check things okay we're going to replace that with another one for about the same cost that actually expands Way Beyond that and gives people access so there's a lot of that kind of stuff yeah and I think to your point for that stuff to be really ramped up in terms of efficacy we're going to want
114to get in front of staff on a regular basis um what I would say is that's ancillary to this discussion this discussion is really just setting the drum beat from a budgetary perspective on how much the district is going to pay in each of these bargaining groups and how much the employees are going to pay on the family coverage side does that make sense yep absolutely so for my own perspective is being representative for the board on that committee and having been on it now my third year and also I'm director Heitman and I self myself both have some some extensive background in hsas I used to write extensively on the migration of not only traditional ppos or what you would call you know Define benefit Health Plans the old school ones where you had
115you know low premiums or high premiums excuse me high premiums and low deductibles and then we we worked in that industry during the time when it migrated the other way and flipped to the high deductible plans with the high high deductibles and all those things so as I was sitting through this meeting the other night um I I find myself navigating to the lower the better the 6.9 actually looks really good to me because in the end if you really want to boil this down to its base component in my opinion what we're really talking about isn't dollars and cents as it relates to the compensation package in total for any employee of the school district that's on our family plan whichever plan they're on to a certain extent in other words if the district
116is paying let's say 60 in a specific case and we go with the 8.9 percent District's contribution goes way up the employee contribution also goes up that's going to have different proportionate impact on different groups than other groups depending on the compensation levels of those individual groups right so by keeping it lower you minimize the impact on the lower paid bargaining groups subject to the negotiations of their contracts but if you know as you know we're just starting the negotiation process with all of those groups so the idea of settling this wherever we go I sort of don't care where we end up on this because it's going to flavor how much money we have left the pie is only this size yeah it can divide it however you want to between benefits and salary
117so whatever we decide tonight is going to define the benefit side of the pie and then that's going to control based on how much money we have how the salary side of the pie is negotiated yeah so I'd argue it almost doesn't matter what we do because it's just going to change the the playing field that Angie and her team have to to play on when it's time to negotiate these contracts you said 6.9 did you mean seven points I did not I meant 6.9 there's something you're saying 7.9 are you yeah the recommendation was 7.9 okay I'm saying I'm I'm in favor of 6.9 but I'll vote for whatever the group goes with for the most part thank you for that clarification sure um because in the end like I said it's 6.9 to
118me if you're somebody who's making an hourly wage um in one of our lesser paid units something as little as 25 per paycheck for your family coverage is a big deal um it's a big deal for everybody don't get me wrong I don't want to minimize the impact on any group but you know it's the age-old argument about about inflation I mean if you make a hundred thousand dollars a year a gallon of milk costs five dollars to make twenty five thousand dollars a year a gallon of milk costs five dollars so the impact on that twenty five thousand dollars a year person is substantially higher than it is on the hundred thousand dollar a year person so that's why and then you couple that with the impact to the general fund so that's piece
119one and then I'll say one more thing and shut up but I really wanted to talk about this a lot because I I'm been on that committee since I was been on the board uh the next piece of that really comes into play um as it relates to the fund 20 which is the fund which has 7.1 million dollars in it right now if we went to 6.9 we're still at 45 percent certain groups within the committee are nervous because that some of them are around from a time period long ago when this was allowed to fall too low I submit to you that that was a dereliction of Duty by somebody probably nobody in this room um and then we wouldn't let that happen again and it's also slightly a byproduct of the fact
120that we did not raise it by anything in the last two years we have not raised the rates in last year not in two years that was my question when you had these years where you made money did the premiums actually go down so they went down oh they did oh they well we didn't know because utilization was a little bit down because of covid and other things like that right so people weren't willing to the doctors I mean five million of the 7.8 million came in 20 and 21. but as fiscal stewards were hardwired to protect fund balances so we're going to talk about it again in a minute right is this in our general fund or is this a separate it's a separate fund it's called fun20 yeah funded by the premiums and
121here's the case it sits in cash it's not allowed to be invested in anything else yep I like that look so it sits there and we can't really make it work for us so if we have an excessive balance in there it's counterproductive in my view to have that much money sitting there doing literally nothing and I just want to correct what I said cover here did you say that fund balance was 300 000. the Insurance Fund Bill no it's 7.8 million 7.8 million um that those funds can only be used for self-insurance yes in the general fund we can use it for other things so if we keep building up the fund balance and self-insurance that's great for the rainy day but then we could never transfer that money back to the general fund
122it has to stay there it limits our flexibility is best the way to put it and you're getting something on an archievement well question interest is interest okay but compared to what we can do and what they were able to do with like the cares money when we had it and the referendum money when we had that money I mean we were able to Marcy was able to work wonders with some of that so the dollars take a lower deal um is there any Wellness training or anything yes we do have a wellness committee and we're looking to kind of go beyond that but we NIS has also initiated initiated a spring Buck system which basically is pulling all of our claims data from Medica so it can show us the majority of the diagnoses
123among our population so we can kind of have an idea of where to target our time and energy so if we have a high claims utilization under diabetes we know that that's an area that we want to do some proactive Wellness strategies so that's been really helpful that just started so we're starting to get that data but we have done other Wellness activities through the committee we kind of bring some ideas through NIS helps you with this right they don't just dump this all on you guys that we can we can gradually introduce other programs that you're probably used to in private or world where you have things like biometric screening and premiums dictated by your participation in biometric screening I don't have that so what that is is you you come here and you
124say okay here's your premium but if you and your spouse agreed to take um to have a little mini physical they do a blood test and a blood pressure check and all of this stuff if you agree to take that biometric screening you get a lower premium and then what happens is you get a report back that shows you where you're at from a risk category perspective and then that's a wellness training opportunity to show people that they have a health risk and that they could mitigate it by doing X Y and Z we reinsure like this we self-insure now because it's gotten so crazy that no one can afford to work um but then we started this Wellness thing and like we had like a weight loss challenge and if you don't gain a
125pound you don't lose weight but if you don't gain any weight well all of a sudden everyone got trained up on these hsas and our claims just have been going down and down and down in the last couple years I shouldn't let the cat out of the bag I've raised it just a little bit because I'm afraid that the hammer is going to drop and we're going to have that terrible year and then it's going to be I'm going to raise everybody 100 bucks a month you know so um it's really made a big difference but you know our agent does all that for us I don't even go to the meetings it's like it's just handled all these different locations and no different than you guys um so I'd make sure you're getting your
126money's worth out of them but I'm with you on the deal I think we should go at the lower okay so the group landed on the 7.9 compromise recommend the hearing that the 45 percent comfortability threshold is that was there any other discussion of why why we wouldn't want to go with 6.9 percent I think the concern is that again the less that we put into the fund but if we have another bad year we don't want to ever get to the point of the double digit increases I think is what I could hear most people feeling when we met a few months ago kind of where our claims were starting to go like this there was a some caution and saying hey it might be at about 13 and that kind of spooked a
127lot of us out um to become perfectly honest um and so there was you know to director Boyle's comments way back when there was a time where there were too many low increases or zeros and then they were slammed with a huge hike and so for the members that are part of the committee you know that is very fresh in their minds that they don't want to have have that happen again so on the premium change column you can see you know there was 20 sums way back in 2000. that's traumatizing yeah so yeah and yeah you have that yeah 2018 a 12 hike right you that's what you're trying to avoid is Peaks and valleys on this you'd like it to be kind of steady keeping Pace with inflation as much as possible but
128of course medical inflation is difficult to chart because it doesn't follow traditional right inflation necessarily it's generally a little higher chair Dr heidman um just a couple of additional thoughts going into the future it appears that some of the comments that I'll be making are the horses already left the barn and trust me employee benefits are near and dear to my heart and near and dear to employees as well absolutely one paying 100 percent of a single person's premium I think is very generous they have no skin in the game um I think director Boyles asked the question about our brought up biometrics smoking you know uh people that smoke maybe their premiums should be a little bit higher than those that don't smoke uh these are things for future discussion but I think it's
129important that I want to be on the record I just think paying no in premium at all is that's that's pretty generous very generous and you don't have any skin in the game um so to me that's a that's a disincentive I think we want to be as director donlinger and director Bowles have brought up we want to incentivize people to become healthier Etc what about hsas do we have any local banks that are acting as custodian trustees there are these dollars being sent off to some conglomerate in Cincinnati Ohio well and they are part of kind of our third party vendor who does handles our HSA so just like further who it handles fsa's hsas hras they partner with their own bank so we couldn't just go with you know a Brainerd bank and
130say hey we want you to hold all your hsas because they don't have that relationship with our third party administrator you know it's pretty typical in the private sector as well I mean I get that I totally understand that uh that they're going to be using their yep their vendor uh payroll we offer a lot of different organizations don't we where people can have the direct deposit into the payroll how many 15 no more than that well in that way 30. yeah what what typically can happen is like the individual if I see where you're going the individual could designate that their payroll deduction that they do for their HSA contribution could go to the financial organization of their choice however because of the further relationship the employer contribution would still have to go to
131the designated custodian that's part of the package right and they could do that it would just be after tax well I know I want to get into the Weeds on all the regulations but yeah they have to be afforded the opportunity to transfer their money without penalty and they can so yeah I was just curious but my biggest concern was on the uh the self only I mean that's uh that's Revenue into the kitty yep and I will say that since I've been here it it has we've at least hit a dollar amount I mean before it was 100 single 90 family I mean so we're we're now negotiating based on a dollar amount versus just absorbing all the increases always so I mean it's a process our employees who have been here a long
132time are very used to our benefits When individuals leave and maybe come back they're like oh my gosh I did not realize how much I appreciated those benefits we do hear that new teachers coming in teary-eyed about how great our benefits are compared to where they've come from so this District does use that as part of its total compensation I mean to retain teachers and retain all of our staff because it's a huge huge benefit and that's where some of our groups our lower paid groups were struggling to get that dollar dollar amount up because we pay so much in benefits and we have that conversation every time we negotiate it's due to that high amount that we put towards insurance that we're not able to balance that out to get that hourly rage up
133wage up when it creates bizarre Optics because some people when they're applying for jobs aren't capable of Discerning the total package right they're going to look at the salary and they're going to go they pay less than these guys realize that it's richer over here and you know so the private sector they've gotten to where they do these total reward statements where they at the end of the year they give you a statement that says here's everything it costs us to have you as an employee this is really what you got paid right in total so before you go job shopping and think your grass is greener somewhere um you might want to you might want to add all these numbers together and you'd think after 20 years of doing it I'd be smart enough
134to not have that happen but five years ago I switched jobs and uh I learned that one personally but it was just just some comments their thoughts absolutely I think it's the future uh yep because we absorb 100 if there's an increase in the premium 100 yeah on their base plan there's just no skin in the game yep I don't think that's I don't think that's the case Randy aren't we paying 80 on something 60 on some people not on premium it varies depending so 100 of the premium on single for 100 or for single okay but not on our plans so before somebody motions a percentage I just want to reiterate the one thing that to an extent whatever number we pick tonight that's just step one in the process that's going to sort
135of dictate how we negotiate with these bargaining units going forward based on our budgetary constraints and total compensation package so keep that in mind um as we go to the next step here please ah I'll make a motion we do the 7.9 I'm with angia and let's cushion the blow if next year's bad I like the 6.9 but what the hell we have on motion from director donelinger at 7.9 increase per the committee recommendation and a second from director spear Is there further discussion or questions for Angie and mercy hearing none all in favor say aye aye opposed same sign motion carries good discussion thanks you guys thank you if we have a one minute two minute break okay so we uh recess has been requested for two minutes five minutes let's do five minutes
136nobody can really do two minutes so we will go into recess for two minutes do we need a motion for that rare recessed five minutes please we'll return at 808. [Applause] thank you we'll have to wait till everybody gets back we'll find out [Laughter] [Applause] [Laughter] there's a lot we can do better foreign hard to get mad at the crowd when the board keeps talking all right so where are we we are now we are on to action item number five I believe which is the approval of the first reading of the revised msba policies as presented policies 405 and 430 Angie please yes so this will be the first and final is what my recommendation is the Veterans Preference policy there were absolutely zero changes because it's just a review of that policy there
137is statutory reference that kind of precludes this policy so we will continue to follow that an emergency sick leave just really has minor changes now that we don't have an assistant superintendent that was struck and then um item number seven on the emergency sick leave I also removed as it was kind of repetitive with another item motion second okay we have a motion by director Donald you're with a second by director spear to approve policies 405 and 4 as presented as first and final reading any further discussions hearing none all those in favor oppose him sign motion carries thank you all right next up we have the approval of the YMCA Aquatics agreement as presented in Marine [Applause] good evening I asked uh Shane riffle the CEO of the Brainerd YMCA to join me tonight
138so he can answer any questions that you have um I'm pleased to present to an agreement that we've been working on that would provide operation of our Brainerd High School Aquatics Center by the Brainerd Family YMCA there's a link in your agenda to the agreement and then I handed out paper copies as well through this collaboration it'll allow us to increase our opportunities for community members to use the facility for programming such as swimming lessons and Aquatic Fitness and take advantage of the YMCA's um expertise in the area of Aquatics they employ an Aquatics director who is able to train lifeguard do lifeguard training hiring Staffing and all that which is really what we need we don't have anyone on staff to do that so this agreement was drafted and reviewed by a committee of
139myself and Shane Megan belch who's their Aquatics director our high school principal Andrea Rusk our director of buildings and grounds Reed TC and our athletic director Jack Freeman and so we work together to draft this and make some changes it's also been reviewed by our board policy and committee Relations Committee and then our district attorney and insurance also went through this and made quite a few changes throughout revision so now I present to a nearly complete agreement there's a couple little dates and different things that we'll need to add if we have your approval to move forward with this questions for Anne-Marie and Shane Mr chair director Ward thank you um perhaps stop me if I'm saying something I'm not supposed to okay either one of you please um a little birdie landed on my
140shoulder the other day when I was over at the high school and told me that um the potential for uh training um lifeguards may have maybe pursued through this agreement is that correct correct and it already kind of is so we offered a lifeguard training class that Megan taught this uh I guess it started winter semester and do you know how many students she ended up with a handful of students it was this time offered I think just a matter of a week before the semester yeah it was kind of a before but there's more people um I believe all four have obtained employment so it's uh it's a good opportunity for both and we plan to continue that hopefully to continue to build staff and opportunities for Brainerd High School students I've that little
141bird also told me that the numbers for next year have significantly um increased for that opportunity um and I asked I asked that person I asked if WSI is would be part of it as well now I think this is awesome myself I think it's awesome that we are going to be able to use our pool to train kids be lifeguards which is there's a short as you know there's a shortage of but it's also good for the kids it's like a service learning kind of model and I'm always um we'll get about that later but um so but also is there a potential for WSI as well yes they do part of the curriculum swim instruction what would that be doing if there's a high school uh class on that will that would that
142be that during High School class yes because it's a semester-long class she had time to cover all that so I oh sorry thank you director warden in fairness to the the rest of your director Heideman and I um director heidman chairs the committee and I said on the committee that where this was brought up and discussed in some detail um it's it's got win-win written all over it yeah um there's there's there's almost you know I mean we can talk some more but I mean it allows us to utilize the pool facility to a much greater extent it allows us to bring expertise in that we can't possibly hire from outside right and it helps us um potentially create even a little bit of Revenue off of off of the pool facility I mean there's
143just you know there's there's there's not much pick apart here in my opinion yeah yeah I'm just thrilled about this partnership and I can't tell you how many people have asked about an opportunity to get in and swim in the new pool in people from the community and so I'm so excited that we're going to be able to provide that through you guys so thank you yes to this I just well you're done yeah go ahead um my only concern is and I I didn't bring it up at the committee meeting but uh are we going to be limiting um the usage of the diving boards does that bring in the consideration some extra liabilities I think it would but I don't know if there's plans how that would be handled or not uh uh
144we haven't developed specific operating percentages right now but I can tell you that it would most likely be a part of a structured program and not just open diving yeah those days our Aquatics have pretty much come and gone yeah yeah no I'm all in favor with this too I mean it's a one of the big facility is absolutely I think let's use it and it's not going to cost us any money um one of the big benefits too is why is the YMCAs policies are very safety driven so they'll help us come up with some um operating you know use policies that we don't have the knowledge to do our own on our own so it'll be great I'll make a motion that we approve this resolution great so we have a motion from
145director Brecken with a second by Director award to approve the contract as presented any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye those opposed same sign motion carries contract approved thank you thank you Emery thank you Shane good luck guys go fast we did that one yeah keep it going let's go next up we have the approval of revising policy number 714 fund balance as presented now see all right so this was presented um as an agenda item on the finance committee meeting on April 26th and the discussion headed towards let's bring this to the full board and have some discussion um the current policy was updated in March of 2021 to 10 of the annual general fund budget for the unassigned fund balance previous policy was five to
146seven the state recommendation is three months of operating or 25 you guys have heard me say that you're new some of you but you still have heard me say it and then I just want to review some historical information and then there'll be time for questions and board discussion so this is the historical fund balance for the last about 10 years you can see it's fluctuated between eight and seven and then in 2021 we did have a substantial increase because of the cares funding we were able to supplant a lot of our expenses with the cares funds and build that fund balance up which is why we looked at the policy in 2021 to discuss should we be increasing it 21-22 it did go up a little bit um and then this is what it
147means in terms of percentages so we're at about 12 percent at the end of last year and we are projected to be at the end of this year at 10 million 499 or 11.28 percent so this is where I want to open it up to questions board discussion right now we're a little bit above the policy is it something you guys want to increase keep as is I'll let you take it from there Dr Boyle's going to add one so based on the presentation you gave us with a 30 000 foot view basically if you'd add somewhere in 11.2 if like everything was exact fact on that sheet it would take us down to 9.8 yep somewhere right under down there so if you want to just put another dot that's if everything we predicted
148was 100 accurate on that sheet which it's not even close there's always like a one to two percent chance of error on that sheet correct um because it's a moving Target but just to kind of keep that in mind the reason we saw that bubble was here's money we know we have a cares Cliff coming so we're being very mindful of that Cliff so we all of a sudden don't a year from now say oh we didn't know that was going away so we've slowly been folding that back in and in 2021 just to give a little background on that um obviously some the board members did not want to go to 25 because they didn't want it to be an unattainable goal right something that we want to be able to reach so that's
149where the 10 came in it Dawns on me I think I'm the only board member that voted on that it's here today um director Ward um you're on the committee do you have any other insight well Marshall didn't a good job of bringing it up and showing the statistics and the data and everything else um my only comment uh during the finance committee was that um and I know we're always talking about three month um three-month uh expenditures and made sure we have it or whatever but I think in my opinion I'm in favor of keeping the current um percent of where we are at for the fund balance has the current 11.2 10 yeah director Donald you're also in that committee any thoughts uh yeah well obviously we can't raise it because what are
150we going to do we're going to have to completely redo the budget if we wanted to raise it so I think we should stick with the 10 for now get through next year see all things with first of all let's see how things shake out this spring the legislature and I would I don't think we should lower it but I don't know how on Earth we're going to go from 10 to 25 yeah I mean we'd have to come up with 15 million dollars and uh that'd be kind of tough to do it'd be quite some cutting going on around here and I don't think it's really uh possible the other thing I wonder about and John maybe you know this or Marcy or Heidi somebody is where do they come up with their 25
151number I understand it's three months of expenses but if they just pull it out of the sky what's going to happen I mean how can we how do we go upside down and need three months worth of income to pay our bills you know I you follow me I mean it's like so prior to my time the state would withhold payments like if there was a shutdown or if they were looking or they were having some cash flow issues then they would withhold we get paid on the 15th and the 30th of every month by the state so if they were ever to stop their payments this would be our so they're warning us well I wouldn't say there were that that policy they're the ones that are going to get us that recommendation's been
152in place for quite some time like it's not like it's new every auditor will tell you yeah that's just that's like industry standard yeah 25 well maybe we should set it as a long-term goal maybe not tonight but we should set it as a long-term goal that we continue to like you guys went to took it to 10. maybe we should try to take it to 12.5 the spirits of directors black lance and haglin are thick in this room right now that was that was fundamentally what we were trying to do because I think we were at seven or whatever it was and then we you know so the idea was but then of course with covid and cares and all this other stuff going on it's the picture is so muddy that to to
153try to to try to shine a laser through that to a fixed point on the horizon it's pretty difficult right now it feels like there's just too much unknown right now and I feel like it's you know if we're in a situation where we're cutting or you know having to spend some of that money anyway I feel like it's not the time to be talking about how much money we can put in the savings account it's time to talk about how would we pay the electric bill and pay for gas emergency can we review this uh after the legislature is done or whatever we can always review right yep great whatever you want okay great point when we know a little more of that might be okay so on the agenda is you know to
154look at the policy and if there's no action then that's we can move forward with that sure director heidman on the policy uh just a recommendation it is sometimes very confusing what is a restricted what is it committed and what is an assigned in what is on a sign if somehow in this policy we could put a very simple understandable definition Fair suggestion as a thought hopefully that isn't going to stop us from approving this tonight but it's just a thought uh it just makes it easier for me to understand some other board members and maybe the public yep so and procedurally if there is no motion the policy stays as is so we're fine correct is this general fund money that we can do whatever we want with yeah so it's not even like
155we can just take a percentage of our total it's just the general fund which is about 60 of our total right right yep okay got it okay and that's I'm gonna that's my point you you accept general fund right I thought unassigned funds can be used for any purpose so general fund the 10 is what we're talking about in the general fund but there are unassigned and other funds okay so yes okay thank you and then this is other funds and then we got the other funds over here and then we got the healthcare fund that's what I'm saying I think director heideman's uh suggestion is a great suggestion I think it may clarifies and clears up a lot of um questions that have been raised in Prior years quite frankly that said I would
156entertain a motion for revising the policy to include director heideman's suggestions okay but not changing the percentage yeah yeah I have yeah I have no problems with the percentage I'll make a motion foreign all right we have a motion from director Heideman with the second by director Don nolinger to revise policy 714 to reflect director heidman's suggestions of clear definitions of fun types and balance types okay any further discussion so does that come back to us then next month yeah it'll have to be reread and brought back to us right I would suspect next meeting budgets next month so can I maybe enjoy okay yeah we're not changing anything it was forwarding yep okay any other discussion or questions hearing none all those in favor say hi hi opposed same sign motion passes thank you
157Marcy thank you you don't believe yet though we have you for one more yeah so now we're doing the approval for the first reading of the revised MSC ba policy 704 which is the development and maintenance of an inventory of fixed assets and a fixed asset accounting system super exciting um this was also brought to the finance committee there was nothing written at the district as far as what our threshold was it was just kind of this unknown or unsaid that it was 2500 which is low the federal guidelines is 5 000 so you can see in this policy I just added after you fars with a capitalization level that equals or exceeds five thousand meaning we would only add assets that have that five thousand dollar value or greater this will save on staff
158time and then we also have it written somewhere so it's not for somebody to try to guess what that number is motion second okay we have a motion by director donlinger with a second by Director award to approve policy 704 as presented any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please opposed same sign motion carries thank you Marcy and just for the record it's pretty cool when your stuff's not exciting when your stuff gets exciting my cardiologist doesn't like that I've noted foreign of the 2023-2024 transportation contract with Reichert bus company as presented so this contract mimics what was done prior with the addition of um 2.1.4 interior cameras there was language in their um previously however we did add that the district would contribute up to 60 000 toward the actual cost of
159new bus cameras uh this had been done prior to my time I guess where a contribution is made and then once we purchase those cameras it's up to the company to maintain and replace and all that but we we make a contribution we're going to do that with our safe schools funds so um not anything to do with the unassigned and then the next change was in the 2.11 2.11.2 just clarifying trainers so throughout the document there was trainer and they do have other people who are also trainers so they wanted to clarify that and then the last change was the exhibit B rates three percent was put on all the previous rates for each year otherwise everything else pretty much stayed the same uh anything I'm missing and just for the new boards background
160knowledge we put out a request for proposals last school year so we opened up bids for busing companies Statewide and continued with our local partner of Breakers so one of the questions we've had of are you looking have you considered we went through that whole process last year um I think director Spirit director Boyles you were there but that's been a question that's been posed in exploring all of that the the bus driver shortage is not just Brainerd it's Statewide it's national wide I know our community has endured a lot this year with buses having to be canceled and I give a huge shout out I think Fran sitting back there she's still awake normally she's up between four and five but coming up with backup routes and backup routes and alternative routes and I
161just uh our community has been patient but that is the challenge we've given back to Reichert is that you know you have to keep working to get drivers because we continually cancel routes daily um you know we have field trips I'm looking at the Forest View staff there's a field trip that's supposed to be going and our staff are frustrated because they can't get off on time because their routes are trying to get kids on time um so it's it's really been a challenge and so Reichert says committed to working diligently to continue to recruit their last recruitment efforts they did get drivers but that's going to be their constant challenge so it has to improve and we have worked with our neighboring districts you know we have good partners north south east and west
162of us that when they can offer support they do but at the same point in time when we're asking for sport they haven't had support so we are searching everywhere do we get other bids we had one other company okay that responded and it was a significant yeah I was just curious and part of that is you look at re-establishing I mean when you're going to be new to the area and you look at their number of buses we're requiring we cover 516 square miles that's hiring a lot of Staff our drivers I know about you but I wouldn't want to be a bus driver I'm a great bus para when they need one but that's a lot of responsibility in our drivers that we've had have been doing an amazing job it's a thankless
163job so so um a couple quick things one um I'm gonna vote in favor of approving this contract but I'm going to editorialize a little bit before we get all the way to the Finish Line on it because I was involved in this contract last year too and what I would say is it's fairly easy to approve this one tonight in my view because it's just a percentage increase over a whole bunch of stuff that there was a fairly painful process a little over a year ago where uh the folks from Rikers came forward in good faith and really we had a lot to solve and that got solved in that last round of discussions and that was through in no small part due to work by Marcy and Lane Larson and Heidi and gosh
164I'm going to forget a bunch of people Norby um and people from reichertz as well I mean it was it was not easy to get this done last year but we got it done that having been said the contract as written has mechanisms in there for us and I think it's going to behoove us down the road to look at if we get into next school year and we're having rampant issues with route fulfillment we may have to look to invoke certain sections of this contract that we currently are not namely Financial penalties for non-fulfillment of routes um because again it gets set at the board table at least once a quarter the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results if they're not able to recruit
165more drivers then perhaps some fine fines as permitted under the contract might incentivize them to do something a little bit different but to Heidi's Point um as it happens I had occasion a few weeks ago to review some of the video from some of our school buses I'm going to tell you something you could not pay me enough to be a bus driver um you couldn't pay me enough to be a teacher but in this particular case we have some something we need to review down the literalizing and I can FD issues on our school buses with child behavior and a bus driver has limitations on what they can control and what they can do and when they get involved our parents come forward with a totally different perspective of what those children are doing
166on that bus and as board members we need to be resolved in the idea that sometimes we just have to call a spade a spade and say you know what the kids at fault in this scenario we've got to start removing some kids from some buses because the behavior is out of control it's like a rolling prison yard on some of these bus routes and that's again the world according to Kevin but we need to get this under control and and I think it's you know and easy for me to say I'm not running again in two years but um you know it's it's we got it we got to get this under control we got to support those bus drivers because of the environment that they live in and just like we have to
167support our teachers and everybody else I don't mean to single them out but that's what we're talking about tonight so I'm in favor of this contract I'm actually gratified that uh the morans and everybody else at Reichert came forward in good faith and did a great job with this I think it's a reasonable price increase based on where we're at with everything fuel costs and and everything else um so enough said I just wanted to pass all that along because I think while we'll finish the contract tonight I think we're not done with issues related to our busing and our routes that's going to be before this body before we get too far into next school year thank you yes director Heideman uh just to ask a question I you know you know I'm looking
168at these fines Etc now correct me if I'm wrong if a route doesn't run they don't get paid correct so when you talk about so if a bus doesn't run so if bus 75 is it running they don't get paid the 310 dollars and 48 cents so when you look at it wasn't that isn't that a way that we're kind of pushing back I mean well they haven't fulfilled their contract but yet I I get where you're coming from director Boyles on the fines because it's at our discretion and I don't think it's ever been imposed correct based upon our conversations it's never been imposed uh you know uh yeah yeah and I'm not aggressively advocating if we do so I aggressively advocating that we get it on the table right you know so that
169everything's on the table and I it was more to call out the fact that these mechanisms are in the contract but therefore since they're in the contract that's why I'm in favor of it because it gives us the flexibility and the capability of levying those if we get to an untenable situation and this might not be a fair question Marcy but how much money have we not paid him this year because of buses not running oh is it a substantial amount yes and I can I can send you that number because I don't have it right off the top of my head yeah I was just I was just curious yeah no it's but so so a three percent increase not having buses running it might turn out to be a zero percent increase very
170clear to when they have a driver we want the route most definitely we repeatedly said that so yeah so yeah there's cost savings but at a huge expense to our families and so we have it budgeted we want the routes we want the drivers we want the service and I love the alternative options that we've came up with towards the end of the school year you can think Fran and Beck kubish that was really you know there was alternative options available and that's that's tremendous yeah because yeah I don't want to see kids not riding on the buses that's what they're supposed to just because we can save 300 bucks a day it's extraordinarily good news that LC is back in the saddle over there at Rikers that's that's that's big for us oh the
171person that Lefty came back so um yeah I think that's that's that's that's big but I guess that was the other editorializing point I was trying to make I think this is all well and good but at some point the district specifically this Board needs to back up the administration because for for them to improve their ability to recruit and retain drivers we got to back those people up we we can't allow out of control situations on these buses to cause us to lose drivers and cause Fran to have to deal with profanity lace tirades from parents on a pretty much regular basis it's not acceptable and we shouldn't have to accept it not as a district and not as citizens of this District so I have a question what are the rules uh I
172don't know Marcy Heidi for these uh bus drivers I've talked to numbers and numbers of teachers that are being told some pretty crazy things by second and third graders it doesn't seem like a very fun work environment to me so what are the goals that you're setting principles are setting are are we actively working and getting this what I'm thinking and maybe I'm completely out in left field I don't think I am these behavioral problems under control from what I've been told from what I've read is ever since covid everyone thought things were going to be better and when the kids came back they've just been a little Wilder and a little more uh you know hitting biting spitting and so we've got teacher shortage in the United States we've got a bus driver shortage
173in you know Brainerd School District do we have any plans any goals are we setting any are we are we working towards this like changing do we need to change our policies is it something we need to get involved in or are you guys on top of it look at that so we do have a whole bust discipline process and so we really look at our drivers are the main priority of that so they have the ability to invoke so they do a bus referral and there's very clear warning want step one step two and so there are students who lose their privilege to ride on that bus so first step is we really try to work directly with the driver and the drivers working with the family or the student and that seems to
174be fairly working fairly well sometimes it's a delay from driver to principals or principals take on a lot of responsibility with that once the student steps into the building then communicating back with the family so again there's bus training at the beginning of the year the other thing we have to be really cognizant of is some of our kids get on a bus close to 6 a.m and don't get home till 6 PM 516 square miles kids are on the bus for over two hours that's a long time so that's again why we want our routes back we're committing to the safety of making contribution towards cameras so we have better backup for that to be able to have more accurate information and be able to respond quicker too so there's a lot of pieces
175I to be critical but are these are things we already have right so what are we going to do going forward to try to get this problem under control because obviously you know definition of insanity let's not do the same thing we did last year and the year before because we're it's not working so what are we going to adjust I mean are we I mean you guys can adjust on the Fly you don't have to do everything for the year do you so I mean there's there's more work to be done that's for sure well tons of it's situational too but I'll tell you if you took the first time for the Bus video that I watched K through four and submitted to the Motion Picture Association of America it would come back with
176an R rating in the first 20 seconds I promise you that I swept the bus at Nisswa School more than any other fifth grader ever did because that was the penalty you know then I was late for class so they pulled my hair a little bit you know but you know you straighten out sooner or later I do want to put some parameters on this conversation there the only time that a board member gets pulled into Washington something went wrong but my point in bringing it up isn't to you know to really call out that we have this you know rampant issue it's to create a cultural shift to where we're supporting the bus drivers to to help reichertz and getting bus drivers to come in absolutely because right now if you talk to the
177bus drivers you know it's you know they're they're fighting with one hand tight behind their back so you're not the best analogy in the world but I think the pairs and the teachers are too of course I mean we gotta that's another contract that's another day right now we're talking about buses all right we're on the buses I was one of those kids that was the first down last off yeah lived right next to the damn bus driver what are you gonna do hit me with the stick I'll make a motion to approve the contract Ed okay so we have a motion from director spear with a second from director Brecken to approve the 2023 2024 Transportation contract with Reichert bus company as presented any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify
178of saying aye aye opposed same sign all in favor motion carries thank you thank you thanks Marcy our last action item I believe for the evening is the approval to change the finance committee meetings from June 21st 2023 at 12 o'clock P.M to June 7th 2023 and July 19th at 11 o'clock to July 5th 2023. motion second Mr chair and if Mitch Sheriff I might just let the rest of the board know and the public know that these changes are being made because well number one hopefully the legislature is done on May 22nd that's not a given ever but um so hopefully they'll be done with their work and then we will have more information at that point and these move the meetings the finance uh legislative meetings prior to the board meeting that month
179that's why it has been suggested and we'll have more information that we can deal with budgetary things and legislative things and all the other fun stuff we do we do have a motion from director donelinger with a second from director Ward to approve the finance committee uh meeting changes as presented any further discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify saying aye aye aye opposing sign all in favor motion carries all right just to go through committee meeting updates our next up first up we'll do student support services and activities with director Brecken okay this meeting was held March 22nd it was the first student Support Services meeting since our current board took office um the purpose of this committee is to create comprehensive student support services and activities to meet the diverse needs
180of students it includes the student support services and Equity Department led by Candace Burkhart and the activities Department led by Jack Freeman so I'm going to pick three different um key items that we talked about in that meeting the first was the new overdose medication policy it's coming from the medical staff and legislation to requiring school districts to have an overdose medication policy in place Brainerd has had a policy in place at BHS BLC and LEC for the past year um we talked about the collaborative Services worker contracts and positions which we addressed at the last board meeting uh these positions were funded through the adsys grant but the district has been working on moving the collaborative Services Workers from Source well to become ISD 181 staff a new contract was approved at last month's
181board meeting aligning with the school's schedule and these positions will be posted internally and externally with planned interviews this month I believe right okay and the another item that we talked about is our athletic trainers the district has a contract for sports medicine provision with Essentia Health it's a five-year contract beginning with the 2122 school year and the contract is supposed to have Essentia Health providing two full-time athletic trainers at bhes and this contract has not been fulfilled um for the past two years athletic trainers are not mandated at a at events during the regular season but they are during postseason play and I Know Jack has done a really good job of trying to get um athletic trainers that most of the contact sports but has has difficulty with that so the two positions
182are both open at this time and there is the posting for them with incentives and has that changed yeah the partnership was uh essentia's been great last time that we met just so you know new leadership at Essentia is really committed and made a strong commitment to ensure that we have this in place they actually put some pretty significant hiring incentives in place and they had a great response so I know they were interviewing so hopefully by the time we start the year this will be a non-issue thanks to that new leadership and partnership I'm both Sarah and I sit on that committee and so we really just got briefed on kind of the the two various departments student support services and activities but this was noteworthy to me Brainerd currently has 31 different sports
183with 788 students participating and our district also offers 24 different clubs and activities so it's a pretty robust is that just the high school apartment that was high school yeah that was high school yeah High School right that's just High School right yeah it's a good deal yeah okay thank you Michelle yes thank you I think you're up with the long-range planning facility I'm uh passing the buck down to uh talk to me so DJ's been all around I think the world lately so the nice thing are long-range planning just initial biggest thing is our building projects are wrapping up they're almost done so what's going to be coming forward to you and in the coming July is we're going to be looking at uh that long-range planning facilities for example a lot of our
184long-range planning dollars been tied up in building projects and all those dollars are being freed back up so we can talk to talk to start making plans what's our one-year priority three-year priority 10-year priority so um read TC is the director that sits on long-range planning and facilities and that's about where we were at so just that initial meeting where to come thanks Perfect all right director heidman you're up with policy and community relations yeah I attended the meeting remotely uh thank you for subbing and taking control of that meeting for me you're welcome uh what did we talk about we talked about a community ad overview uh we talked about an overdose policy as well the biggest thing there is with Narcan and uh the availability of it in our schools and training and
185just a lot of things and then of course uh the FDA has passed uh you can get Narcan over the counter now so there's a lot of there's a lot of moving parts and the policies hopefully the msba will give us some direction as well on that they're coming out with something the aquatics agreement we talked about tonight and we signed so end of report perfect thank you director Heideman next up is curriculum and instruction staff development with director sphere great so we met on April 19th and uh the purpose of that group is to assist the school board and administration and overseeing District curriculum and professional development for all staff and so a key to that conversation was director Martha and we talked through the continuous improvement process as it relates or applies to
186staff development and scheduling and structure and curriculum and pretty much everything and how we set priorities once a year along with kind of painting a picture of what success looks like for for all of those priorities for the district we also talked through staff the staff development process and our participation in the acamp program and that we have to have a board approved and approved by mde plan on file every year for that and so we're going to be learning more up and coming up in June I believe about that and then we also talk through the music curriculum that you get to see today so thank you very much finance and legislative director Ward thank you Mr chair and um as I start I want to recognize and show note appreciation because uh to
187our teachers because it's National Teacher Appreciation Week um and um I want to make sure that the Educators understand that we all appreciate and thank them we heard tonight I you couldn't paint enough to be a teacher you couldn't pay me enough to be a dress driver we heard that tonight and so we know that um the job is uh tough and um I've been blessed to be able to be around and see some remarkable things in this school district uh this these last I guess it's been two to three weeks but it seems like two to three years but um but no we I want to start off with that thank you to all staff not just the teaching but all staff for everything they do uh finance and budget uh we had a
188great committee meeting and um um you we voted on a lot of the things that we talked about uh at the finance and budget committee and I just want to bring up a few things that is still within the finance Financial legislative committee um we had talked about credit card usage which we are going to continue we're going to continue on all these topics but credit card usage uh sub um rates expense reimburse policy um outstanding fees policy uh the school resource officer and then the Strategic plan uh plan for the strategic planning for finance and legislative committee is identified a a stable budget as a main goal so those are the things that we're talking about in the future thank you Mr chair thank you director Ward so last up is me with personnel
189and benefits but again um this is the first round this was the first round for all six of these meetings that you're heard five of the six Recaps so far this is a new structure for us that we implemented with the new board coming in in January uh with the idea being back in the day we were doing two school board meetings a month sometimes to keep up with the workload and the idea was to farm this out to these committees each of these committees for the benefit of those of you watching have two board members on each one so even though you have one board member reporting like director Ward just reported on finance and legislative there's another board member that sits with him on that so we're um each one of us chairs
190one committee and is the second board member on the other committee and then the other theme you probably saw is they did their updates was a lot of what they did in their recap with stuff we talked about or approved at tonight's board meeting agenda and that's the very purpose of these committees is to discuss this stuff in more detail um get into the the Weeds on it and then come forward to the board board with informed recommendations on what to do to streamline the process at this table in Dairy um so with that in mind on the personnel and benefit side um that was director Ward and I sit on that committee so the sub rates were talked about in that committee as well um what we're talking about there is really taking a
191hard look um Angie Bennett's done a tremendous job of doing some research on what school districts around us are doing in terms of their their substitute teacher pay and things like that so we're we'll have some recommendations shortly on how to perhaps make some changes to what we're doing there to make sure we're we're getting the subs that we need we also uh talked about as you guys saw tonight legislative update Dr Han kind of updated this on where we're at with that I think the only one we really didn't delve into tonight that didn't get discussed was the family family and medical leave one that's still dangling around out there any comment on on that one as far as you know um I believe msba is doing board member updates every Friday morning so
192you can we can we can log into msba and see their legislative recap on what's happening this week um and so that was part of what we went over all the insurance stuff that we talked about tonight we covered all of that as well as it relates to the the benefits and insurance part and then we looked at the employee groups uh the various employee groups that have expiring contracts coming up that were in the process of either beginning or in the in further along the process of the negotiation of the new contracts for those folks so that's kind of what we covered in there all right so next up would be informational uh we'll do a Brainerd Public Schools Foundation update Sarah um three quick things maybe not so quickly we had the scholarship
193event last week and there were more than 500 people in attendance for these seniors either with the seniors giving scholarships or supporting them it was standing room over only and it was awesome and there was more than a million dollars worth of scholarships given to those students last week 180 000 of those were from the Brainerd Public Schools Foundation but it was just fantastic to see the generosity and the caring and commitment to those students it's for a purpose fundraiser coming up May 17th at Jack Pine and we are collecting used Warrior gear through June 30th and that'll be offered for sale next school year or end of August to help raise funds for the student need pantries that's it cool great all right Equity task force Michelle so the last couple of months we
194um our committee broke up into to two groups and one group talked about Behavior concerns in the district and the other group talked about social emotional learning concerns or offerings through from that we generated a list of questions that we discussed last time um as a point of discussion to come up with recommendations and it looks like we'll be ready to give recommendations to the board in July and I think at that point we'll just kind of do an end of the year report of all the different kinds of things that the equity committee has has done thank you Michelle I believe we have a meeting tomorrow tomorrow correct the next meeting and uh next up is Marcy with the businesses Business Services report last but not least I was gonna say you're sick of
195me by now um in your packet is the enrollment report this will be the last report for the year some years we do not go into June so hence why we don't have a June report we're down 106 from the beginning of the year or 1.8 percent the four-year average is normally 1.5 so we're a little bit high but we hopefully will close out the year okay the Mars coordinator does submissions to the state we'll have some preliminary data um I'll reports out in August so she takes all these students and puts it in for attendance and we get the adms as a reminder it's not always Apples to Apples so um any questions on that we're trending a part though we're staying above our budget projection right that's the other thing dad fingers crossed
196um and then the financial report uh nothing new really to note I earlier we talked about unemployment and I just wanted to correct when I said the 0.7 0.35 is employer that's the paid family of medical leave so just FYI I don't know if I made that yeah that's not the unemployment yeah I know when you said that yeah somebody crisscross that sorry any questions thank you thanks Marcy thank you thank you superintendents report Dr Han but Marcy didn't add then that budget report is that anybody who's maintained through the entire meeting should get a bonus so thank you for your patience especially to our staff and administration I know these make for long days and just being physically present means a great deal to be involved in our our activities so quick things for
197me tomorrow or Wednesday May 10th is our second Community key stakeholder meeting it's been moved to Forest View Middle School so we have more space and a bigger screen hot meal will be served at 4 45 we start promptly at five Sarah highlighted the amazing scholarship senior recognition night one million dollars awarded to people in the room is very impressive and a huge shout out to our foundation one question was asked about the proficiency with our indigenous students and what's been super impressive and I wish I had the data in front of me they celebrated last week their graduates with a round dance and I want to say the numbers tripled in graduates the list of graduates is long and it continues to grow and they're making a point to celebrate fourth grade eighth grade
198and high school so they are seeing the results um National education education National teachers week starting to get tired to myself um I think Miss harmer is an exemplary example for those of you who've been able to sit in her seminar class in Mr Hewitt's research class huge shout out to Rio that she jumped at the chance to share so she was the first one to tell Miss Hammer I'll go talk to them so you're seeing our why in action and I think that was really highlighted with little Dylan when you talk about staff and people that are doing what they do every day that's a difference they're making for kids so I was really appreciative of Rio coming with us tonight so that is my superintendent's report thank you we have one thing you
199gotta go ahead Randy question um Dr Han on the stakeholder partner Ed Ed meeting on the 10th are there a different group of board members that will be going to that or will it be interesting the committee stays the same but if you as a board if you'd like to come for dinner and kind of say hello to people you're sure welcome but that working Committee of 65 stays the same for that second meeting so and then what's going to happen is recommendations are going to come out of there and then it's going to come back to the board for a lot of direct work okay superintendent Han so I was reading your your director update from Friday which and it says members of the SEL committee attended a children's mental health conference this week
200in Duluth this is funner through Gramps grants fine my question is is that the equity committee no no so what's the SEL committee so there's a separate group of Administrators that have been working we've been focusing on last three years on looking at multi-tiered systems of support so we have a group of Administrators reading researching studying what that means for a system for multitude system support and then we have another group of Administrators that are really looking at what do we need to do for instruction to improve students behaviors and outcomes and relationships with one another so that's what falls under that social emotional learning so there's been two work group work groups going that SEL group Candace wrote a grant with the Minnesota Department of Education and they funded for their learning for them
201so that group went up to the mental health conference in Duluth so their administrators but there's two of them two groups there's two groups that so our whole administrative team so just like we talk about buildings having to have continuous Improvement our leadership team also has a continuous Improvement plan our two major Focus areas for Learning and studying and creating system change is multi-tiered system support and social emotional learning so I know everybody's tired and I'm kind of sick of this too okay let's go for it here's my question is the group will be meeting with elementary teacher Representatives on May 2nd to continue embedding life and social skills into our curriculum and I guess my question is is I'm you know I I I'm new to this but I'm starting to wonder when we're
202going to get around to the you know 800 pound gorilla in the room and that 65 of 8th graders in Minnesota can't you know read in an eighth year can't do math at an eighth grade level are we I mean do these kids have enough time do we have them long enough to add all these new I mean it feels to me like they just keep adding new subjects there's new ways to teach it's more experimenting it feels to me like experimenting you could straighten me out if you like but it's like oh now we're going to add this to the deal but in the meantime are they do you feel like the kids are prepared so here's what I can tell you so and you kind of I mean I think Rio did a
203good job on the presentation so you know when we talk about social emotional learning for a lot of people it's become a buzzword or a catch word and what we're really everybody's talking about Children's Mental Health children's Behavior concerns how do we do this so when you talk about kindness respect how to have a conversation how to be kind all those things that's really what this instruction's about and so we look at kids if they don't feel like they're connected if they don't feel like they're respected they struggle to learn and so we're really looking at systematically the minute a kid walks in our door be it early childhood Pre-K what are we doing and what a right we prioritize advertising in teaching those social skills those emotional regulation skills those communication skills those behavior
204skills that's really what it's about a lot of it's Hit or Miss I don't call it hit or miss there's teachers doing lots of things this is really giving us a chance to look at it systematically so it's not one more thing it's just how can we do it collectively as a whole system to have a greater impact and I would argue you know that was the question that was brought up earlier what else are we doing to address these behaviors on the school bus or in the classroom I think this is the what else like those kids can't learn and the kids around them can't learn until they feel safe their needs are met and and that's part of it that's a huge part of it like you walk in Forest being the first
205thing you see is uh be respectful be responsible be yourself right so this is that's the Forestview way so Forestview has their way in Harrison has their way in BHS has their way and what we're really looking at how as a kid as they move across our system do they know our expectations and how are we teaching those expectations how are we supporting those expectations when it comes to basically how am I good responsible human being and how am I good to the other human beings around me that's really what it's all about and so it's an it's giving time and embedding that sometimes it's at a morning meeting sometimes it's at an advisor advisee time but administrators have been spent time researching and learning so we can do it collectively so there's a holistic
206Pre-K 21 approach and so that small group went and got some extra training to look at how are districts doing it really well what are they seeing as exemplary but all these things teach them we need to be more concerned about the behaviors we need to become more concerned about Mental Health that's what this is oh my question is is that we were if we but what will we do in 10 or 20 years ago there's Mr murtha at the at our meeting on the Strategic plan said that we have this Delta where five or six percent above the state all the time well the state is dropping so that's like the old deal if everyone's jumping off the bridge are you going to jump off the bridge and so my question is is that
207we have these behavior problems on the bus we have teachers getting injured uh one of them's here that told me that this had to go to the hospital because they thought that she had a broken leg all these problems are happening I don't remember these things happening when I went to school and I mean I know I'm getting pretty ancient I don't even know if I can remember school but I just had kids that got done you know 10 years ago and I don't remember things being quite this wild these all seem like new found ideas and it seems to me like they're not working real hard when we can't keep drivers I mean no one wants to be a teacher anymore I thought when I was at the Chamber of Commerce thing we were
208at Randy and Sarah you were there we were there for that The Forum and they asked about school safety all I could think about was shootings things like this I didn't know it was safety for the kids safety for the teachers safety for the administration safety for the bus drivers I I had no idea I wouldn't want to get in the scrap with a 16 17 year old young guy like my butt you know um I just I'm just wondering how long do we continue down this road before you start to take back and start to you know I've talked to you about on the side a little bit you know kick a kid out of school or kick a kid off the bus or how many how many freebies do they get you know
209how bad does it get because it just seems to me like this is a big problem and I think we need to address it because these kids there that like Sarah said that want to learn but if they're afraid and there's all this chaos in their class how do you learn anything and then there's kids like me that were a little squirrely that I didn't want to get in trouble with the teacher I didn't want to disappoint anybody I didn't want any of these kind of problems but if I saw you doing it and you got away with it pretty soon I might as well give her a shot and the next thing you know it just kind of goes and it just feels to me like some of this feel-good stuff that we keep
210and maybe I'm totally wrong and we could talk about on the side so we can get out of here but it just seems like it just keeps showing more and more and more and more and it's like in the meantime I don't think the level of education is where it used to be and I think it's our job with a 100 million dollar budget that that's what people expect of us we're talking about here we're saying it's a school issue I would I would put that back on all of us to say it's a community issue it's a it's a nation issue and it's an issue for all of us to solve together we're not going to solve it as a school district we're going to have to solve it as a community the other
211thing too Mr chair is that you know as you said DJ education has changed since all of us have gone to school since I started education and it's changed every year and it's got when I started teaching in 1973 I was excited to have that classroom and I looked around the room when I walked in my first classroom I thought you know I'm going to put that uh poster over there to fire them up and I'm gonna put that poster where to fire them up and put that post over there and fire them up you know what they think of a lot of teachers tell me what they think about now and I've got some children that are in the in the profession let me see how am I going to get my kids out
212of here if a shooter comes in so education is changing and it's changing rapidly and it and these and these and the you know those kind of things have changed our whole society but the other thing I want you know the other thing I want to say is is that um even though it's changed and Colbert had in my opinion a lot to do with it because all of a sudden now um copen was over three years and these kids in my opinion lost three years of academics period um and face-to-face socialization and lots and lots and lots of social skills life skills um you name it and so it isn't going to change in one month to as Sarah said in one month two months three months it's going to take us years to
213not only get our our kids back to his secondary kids may never get it back but hopefully we'll hopefully we'll have the smarts to say okay K through three or four through six or whatever that's when we need to pound and to get the kids back on track and in line with their um with their academics I agree and um but it but it it can't just change it's not going to change in my opinion and I could be wrong as well in just a short time we got to plug away and plug away and plug away and our our staff including all of them bus driver everybody is plugging away I've been able to witness that and there's going to be glitches but we can't give up we got to keep plugging away and
214plugging away I just need to support them yeah I should start hearing about the changes that we're making that are going to go towards that goal you know I don't know what those are but I'm not running the school and I don't know anything about running schools I think one thing that might be beneficial for us as a group again all of us having a collective experience of now close to four years if you had us all together of born experience um you know restorative practices gets thrown around as a word a lot or a term a lot and I think it can be kind of scary and I think we probably could benefit from learning more about how that integrates into the overall plan because while I'm with you um I I I'm you
215know if you have a chronic or uh you know basically a recidivist that's causing problems in a school we've gotta we've got to have the courage as as a district to cut bait and protect the other kids and teachers that are here but on the other hand as somebody who because of a zero tolerance policy incurred close to twenty thousand dollars in legal bills for my son and uh contemplated a lawsuit against the city of Brainerd for something that should have never happened um I think that you can take it too far based on my own personal experience so I think there is it's not as easy as a black and white here's how you solve it with just this you know you use a hammer for a nail you and you use you know
216you use the right tool for the right job but when we put hammers in certain situations where that's all they're looking for in Nails everything's going to look like a nail to them and then we take a problem we already had and create a whole different problem that we didn't mean to create so we've got to be a little bit more judicious and intelligent about how we approach it in if I may based on what director Ward said because the world isn't the same as the world I grew up in um I just recently republished something I wrote about my fifth grade teacher in Pillager when I was a kid these ears didn't get this big by accident yeah I have a lot of good ones around here and like I said in that I
217wouldn't I wouldn't the fact that that you know I was physically corrected a lot because I had a big mouth believe it or not and uh you can't do that now we know you can't do that now I'm not suggesting that we go back to that I'm suggesting that we figure out what the modern version of is of that is and we we sucker and support it and we and we we create an environment where it can bloom that's that's and I think as we all learn more we'll be more effective in doing that but it starts with supporting our staff supporting our administrators and you know standing up for what's right so I I appreciate your comments very much all of you I think that was a good dialogue director heidman yeah it wouldn't
218be a board meeting if I didn't comment on this uh it's something I think we should put on the agenda uh we we need to talk about uh SEL uh I know when I was and I'm older than dirt okay when I was in kindergarten you know how I got along with their other kids Play Time play time Recess Recess no sure things have changed a little bit I think sometimes we as adults I don't think kids have changed that much I think sometimes adults have changed more than kids but I would like to bring it up now to to you uh chair and to Dr Han let's put this on an agenda item let's talk about uh SEL let's talk about CRT let's talk about some of this stuff and let's get it out
219in the open and let's talk about it and see where we're at and see what we can do as a group principals teachers We're All in This Together and I've witnessed a lot of amazing things in our schools these teachers are good we've got some dang good teachers probably got some very good administrators as well you know what I I would also like to add that we need to support our students we need to support our staff and our families but we need to support our students and teaching social emotional learning gives them the skills to make good choices and restorative practices helps them process the mistakes that they're making and then helping them make a wrong a right and create relationships so right we still need I mean kids come to school with trauma
220and and all and we we need to to continue to research best practices so that we don't re-traumatize our students based on the way that we behave or we respond to their misbehaviors I think as a broad topic this would be a good thing to put on our board retreat agenda because then we can we can expand on that because I do I'm a big believer in what Randy was talking about where we take some of these terms that get thrown around in any number of ways maybe CRT is probably the king of those terms where you can talk to 51 people and get 51 different definitions of what it is um and and so the idea that as a collective group we can we can have a dialogue and learn together and then come
221up with our common definition of what it is allows us to then trickle that out to the community and and you know sort of sort of build a reinforcement around what the six of us and everybody around us is doing to you know kind of um all those terms right to normalize them in some way that that people can understand what it means when you say it and when you say it when you say it because right now they watch it on whatever TV network or Internet site they see and it may have nothing to do with what we do here in fact I know most of the time it doesn't and that's going to be part of our strategic plan as well we've got to have some of this stuff in our strategic plan
222so when people start arguing about when we're not doing this we're doing this oh let's go let's go back to the Strategic plan and I told director donlinger this uh uh this was before the election even happened I said you know a strategic plan is going to go a long ways in making our job easier and you said how's that we got a road map we have a road map teachers have a road map Administration has a road map the community has a road map then what you're right and so for the benefit of the community that's why this this group is committed to having board Retreats on a periodic basis yet to be determined how frequent but the idea is to go into a setting that's less of a business meeting setting where we
223can get in a room and kick some of this stuff around to put a little bit more framework around how we work together and how we articulate things at the board table and then what's expected in terms of of Dr Han and her staff to to support what we're looking for but also to challenge us on on those things as well so um it's a good dialogue I think um in a perfect world we'll be able to knock a lot of this stuff out in these in these Retreat settings and and it's just like the Committees I mean creating these alternate venues for these kinds of dialogues I think is a very healthy and productive thing for um not just the six of us but the people that come after us some sooner than others
224well I make a motion it's been a long time all in favor of a journey please signify this thing motion carries we are adjourned thank you