March 20, 2023 School Board Meeting

001I think we're gonna go ahead and get started um director Boyles is out tonight so I'll be presiding over the meeting can you hear me is that better life where is it it's right in front okay right there how about now is this better yep okay uh we'll start with uh roll call please uh here here John Moore here thank you Janet we'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance [Applause] Underground foreign first order of business is we'll approve the agenda as amended I think there were a couple additions to our celebrations up front so I'll entertain a motion for that so move oh second Emotion by director Heidemann a second by director Brecken we'll do a roll call vote for approval or non-approval yes thanks Janet we have a whole slew of fantastic celebrations for

002tonight so we're going to take some time to talk through those because these are all worth celebrating so we're gonna maybe go around the table uh director Heideman maybe we'll start with you and work our way down here and director Ward you'll go after superintendent Han if that works for you perfect agenda in front of you yep wonderful well you have to skip me uh congratulations to uh bring the High School freshman Paul Sandberg who recently was selected by audition to perform with the mid-level All-State Orchestra this assembly is made up of the top 7th through 9th grade Orchestra students from districts throughout Minnesota they performed February 18th at the Minnesota music educators Association mid-winter clinic at the Minneapolis Convention Center and congratulations to the warrior nordics boys ski team for taking fourth place at

003the mshsl state tournament and the warrior Nordic girls ski team for placing 11th congratulations on your great season and congratulations to the warrior Nordic ski team for both receiving the All-State gold team award this is in recognition of the team having a GPA average of 3.75 or above congratulations to Warrior Nordic Skier Kelly Robertson for receiving All-State academic recognition congratulations to the Warrior dance team for taking third place in the Minnesota State High School league class AAA high kick and for taking fifth place in the class AAA jazz congratulations to Sammy hiltner and Bailey Claussen for being selected to the class AAA Jazz all tournament team and to semi-helpner and Madison Avery for being selected to the class AAA high kick all tournament team congratulations to Warrior Alpine skier Calia Cheney replacing 11th at the

004Minnesota State High School tournament congratulations to the warrior gymnastics team for finishing in third place at the section 8A r a double a meet and congratulations to gymnast Brenna deason and Josie harguth for qualifying for Minnesota State High School league state meet Brenna qualified in Vault and finished 11th in the state and Josie qualified on the beam and finished 33rd in the state the meet was held at Roy Wilkins Auditorium on February 24th and 27th of the of 2023. congratulations to Warrior gymnastics coach Jessica Larson for being selected as the a double a coach of the year okay and I think I have the longest recognition of the evening our boys swimming and Diving team was awesome so congratulations to our Warrior boys swimming and Diving team for earning the Section 8 double a team

005title and qualifying in six different events for the Minnesota State High School league meet Wyatt gabrielson finished fourth in diving Mason Keepers finished in first place in both the 50 and 100 yard freestyles Caden assumption finished second place in the 200 individual medley and in the 100 Brooks breaststroke Parker tauji finished in second in the 500 freestyle the 200 medley team of Nathan casasi Mason Keepers Kate assumption and Sam McCauley finished in second place and is advancing to the state meet then finishing off the state qualifiers as Nolan TC Mason Keepers Kate assumption and Parker tauji with a second place finish in the 200 freestyle relay the state meet was held March second through the 4th at the Freeman Aquatic Center and results from that state meet our Mason Keepers was in the championship final

006of the 500 and 100 freestyle finishing fourth in the 50 and 6th in the 100. Parker tauji finished 14th in the 500 freestyle setting a new school record Wyatt gabrielson finished 13th in the one meter diving and Caden assumption finished 11th in the 100th breaststroke done they were really good this year it was a lot of fun congratulations to head swimming coach John Zemke for being named Section 8 double a coach of the year Along with Dan scrimmer of Buffalo congratulations to assistant swimming and Diving coach Owen trout for being named the Section 8 AAA co-diving coach of the year congratulations to assistant swimming coach Carl Shermer for being named the section eight double a assistant coach of the year and congratulations to Warrior wrestlers Easton Dirks Isaiah jilson Shane Carlson and Eli Westgrove for

007winning their respective weight classes in the section 8 AAA tournament and qualifying for the mshsl tournament congratulations to Isaiah German and Kade ostrowski for finishing in second place and qualifying for the mshsl tournament which was held March 2nd through the 4th at the Excel Energy Center and results from the state meet our freshman Easton Dirks finishing four and two placing in fifth place in the 132s sophomore Kate ostrovski finishing 0-1 at 126th senior Isaiah German finishing 0-1 at 138 senior Isaiah jilson finishing one and two it's at 1 45 in sophomore Shane Carlson finishing one and two at 182 and Senior Eli wisgrow finishing one and two at 2 20. and congratulations to the BHS knowledgeable teams for finishing in first and fourth at the regional competition they will be moving on to the Minnesota

008state tournament being held April 13th and 14th 2023 at craigans Resort and congratulations to our Warrior boys basketball team for winning the Central Lakes Conference Championship and congratulations to the warrior adapted floor hockey team special in my heart for capturing the Minnesota State High School state championship they defeated Dakota United a big rival of ours in overtime on Saturday congratulations to Amy Ajo Brainerd speech language pathologist for being appointed by Governor Walsh to serve on the Minnesota professional licensing and Standards Board this board is made up of Educators to ensure Equitable education practices through high licensure standards quality education preparation programs and stakeholder engagement thank you lots to celebrate tonight for sure next we'll move on to public input and as a member of the public can address the board during this time comments will

009be just will be limited to three minutes complaints or allegations against students or employees may not be discussed due to data privacy complaints or allegations must be submitted in writing to the superintendent Han the Board of Education the superintendent will not converse with guests to address topics at this time so we have two public comments tonight one from Mark Olson Mark Olson Lord open their ears and their eyes to the truth in Jesus name the Lord has not given us a spirit of fear but a power love and sound mind I'm here to ask the board and the administration to use Sound Mind by now I'm sure you're all aware of the foolish Mass mandates shutting down of classes that didn't work this was all brought on by fear now we know from the acclaimed

010CDC that mass do not work and shutting down schools only harm children we're now living in a schizophrenic society as proven by our liberal controlled State have you heard what this totally lost and misguided lieutenant governor of Minnesota recently said she was speaking to the recent law which was allowing little children the right to medically alter their bodies against their parents wishes and I quote when our children tell us who they are it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them she added that was it means to be a good parent this is an insane ideology first and foremost because it goes against God's word I bring this to your attention because of the parent who appeared before you speaking to this exact issue her daughter while studying geography geography became exposed

011to transgenderism the question is why this is no different than having the pornography pornographic books you provide young children in the district's Library again why you are in charge of the materials in our schools so why would you allow pornographic books has the school board checked it this out does the school board realize that Minnesota over 50 percent of the kids cannot read at grade level school is for educating our kids and students for the future this school district teaches social emotional learning which is simply awoke agenda this woke agenda Equity diversity boys thinking they're girls girls thinking their boys will never I repeat will never bring more students to the district the main mission of the district should be to educate on basic items leave your ideology left-leaning political bias at home otherwise I

012would suggest you find a new line of work one more thing please read the U.S Constitution nowhere does it say separation of church and state but many people believe it does if you're one of those why would the district seek moral support of local clergy to assist the students and staff during a time of Crisis finally there are solutions to all these concerns all you have to do is read the book Thank you thank you Mr Olson next up we have Doug Kern I just wanted to say a thank you to having in the listening sessions that you've been having with the um uh I forget what they're called but the parent Ed I want to say thank you for that one of the things that bouncing off of what Mark just said uh the

013last person that you congratulated was for being accepted by it's an honor to be appointed by Governor walls but this group The pelbs the public education licensing standard board they forgot the word education in there that's the group that I've been talking about here since last I don't know June or whatever they circumvented the law and made it mandatory that all teachers will push the lgbtq plus and if they don't push that they will lose their license and so that's the group that she just joined um and hopefully she can make a difference there because school is about learning and this pelvis needs to be called on the on the carpet for circumventing the house the Senate and the governor um that's not their job to make law and that judge Mortensen should be called

014on the carpet too for allowing it so he's the one who allowed it thank you thank you Mr Chicken next on the agenda we'll have the approval of the minutes from the regular school bar meeting in February motion motion by Dr dondelinger oh second in a second by director Brecken any discussion if not we'll do a roll call Randy Heideman approved yes John Lord got my boils Michelle Bracken yes outside present approach thank you all right I was on mute my man chose my mute excuse me I voted yes thank you director Ward appreciate it all right we'll move on to the consent calendar accept emotion to approve motion Emotion by director dondelinger oh second second and the second by director Heidemann any discussion if not we'll do a roll call vote [Music] yes is

015there a spear yes yes Michelle Bracken yes yes thank you all right first up in presentations we have Amy showblad presenting on Career Pathways welcome Amy okay well first of all thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about the career pathway program here at BHS in partnership with sourceful my name is Amy shoblad and I am a current career pathway specialist I'm here at BHS um uh my my background prior or I should back up and say this is my second year here at BHS um prior to that my experience was in career advising with rural Minnesota sep and then I've done some work in finance as well as human resources which I think couples really well with my role here in my free time I serve on the Pequot Lake School Board

016so I understand and appreciate all of your hard work so thank you um then let's get into what I am going to talk about today so just going to give you a highlight of the career consultant program um also talk about the career pathway program which is one of the components of the career consultant program I will highlight our new Warrior career Pathways that I'm really excited to talk to you guys about and then we'll end with impact data and then questions or comments from the board so first of all the career consultant program is offered through sourcewell and it is offered to the high schools within region five so the counties of Cass Crow Wing Todd Morrison and Wadena There are 16 schools within our region that are participating BHS is one of them

017and there are a total of six career pathway Specialists so I'm one of six and I'm the fortunate one that gets to be here at Brainerd High School so really the mission with the career consultant program is to partner with administrators all of you Educators counselors higher education and area businesses to build data-driven systems that will support students in building a plan for their unique and exciting chosen Future Path so you'll see excuse me that partner and support students are highlighted other couple things I want to point out is unique and chosen so we're really following our students lead in terms of plans after high school our vision is really one of equity um our vision is that all students are equipped with as many tools for Success that open as many doors as possible

018prior to graduation so how do we do that we do that through these nine career consultant program components so the first is personal learning plans and that is really related to just ensuring that our high school students have a plan after high school graduation it's aligned with the world's best Workforce life ready learning that is really aligned with the Minnesota Department of education's career and college readiness domains of um mindset and social awareness employability skills transitional skills and career development another component is K-12 Readiness Plan so we really just want to make sure that all students kindergarten through 12th grade are getting experiences to learn about different careers impact data and metrics which I'll talk about shortly career experiences is a big piece of this program in that ensuring that we are offering opportunities for

019students to learn about careers within the classroom as well as outside the classroom connecting them with business through Tours through speakers through internships another aspect is higher education Partnerships so making sure that all of our students who wish to get college credit have that opportunity and then career pathway refinement and development and that's really where most of our efforts have been for the last year and a half and then branding of the career pathways so let's talk about the progress that we've made at BHS I'm really excited to tell you about this so we do have a total of 10 committee members um that were formed really to develop these uh career Pathways here at BHS so some of those members are here in the room we have our principal we have some of our

020staff within curriculum and technology and then we also have teachers who are within our CTE Department within our core programs and electives as well to make sure that it's it's representing you know the whole school we as the committee meet every month and one of the first things that we did after forming the committee was requesting feedback from our community about what we should name our new career Pathways and all of you were involved in that and so we landed on Warrior career Pathways and we have formed five of them with a total of 23 endorsements and I'll talk about that more in a minute we updated our 2324 catalog with those career Pathways it was fun to see our work in print and then data Gathering has started so this is my favorite slide

021to show all of you so this really again is an illustration of of the progress that we've made so we have five career Pathways or five Warrior career Pathways they are aligned with the Minnesota Department of education's career fields and they're color coded just as you'd see on the mde website so our first career pathway is an egg food and natural resources and we will allow students to graduate the concentration in either animal science environmental science and plant science our second Warrior career Pathways Arts Communications and information systems and concentrations within that path way include game design Performing Arts Visual Arts video productions and World Language then on our business administration management and marketing pathway we have concentrations that students can take focused classes within Business Administration Management or Finance culinary arts entrepreneurship marketing and

022design we also have an engineering manufacturing and Technology pathway and that includes the concentrations of Aviation cadden construction engineering Outdoor Power trades welding and Woodworking and then finally Health and Human Services and that pathway includes the concentrations for Education Health and law enforcement so this really visually illustrates like the buffet of options that our students here have at BHS so I'm really excited about so what are the requirements for students who complete a warrior career pathway they include a minimum of three concentration specific courses so for instance in the welding pathway students would take welding one welding two and Welding three um and with other options we also want to make sure our students are taking a career um or career exploration assessment of some kind so that could be the ASVAB or the ACT

023students will also complete a digital portfolio which will really illustrate the intentional work that they have done during their High School career the students will also have career experiences and that could in that could be a job shadow that could be an internship an informational interview touring a business having speakers come into the classroom again with the whole purpose of educating our students about careers and maybe you know exposing them to careers they hadn't thought about before that they could see themselves in we also will have our students completed industry recognized certification we're very excited about that as that prepares them for the workforce and then a dual credit course minimum of one college credit course and Within These career Pathways we're also highlighting the core classes that pertain to each pathway so it's really

024making intention out of everything that we do here at BHS so the next steps for us really are number one branding so you will probably you'll see some Communications from us about your input on that and then impact data and we are using the framework through redefine ready it's a national initiative launched by the school superintendents Association and it's really introducing a new research-based metrics so the the concept is students are more than a score so we want to assess that students are college ready and or education ready career ready and life ready so what are those career in education um ready indicators um so two or more of the items on the left so 90 attendance 25 hours of community service workplace learning industry could rent credential excuse me dual credit path career pathway

025course or two or more organized extracurricular activities and then the education or academic indicators that we're looking at is a GPA of 2.0 and one of the following so either an advanced placement exam three plus an advanced placement course with the grade of C or higher dual credit College English or math Algebra 2 and or International Bachelorette exam these next slides I know are in your packet so I'll let you guys take a look at those but this is just really the research behind the redefining ready metrics the goal is um to have a region 5 scorecard as well as a each school district will have a scorecard that will report how our students are Career College and life ready so with that I will entertain any questions or comments who pays for this are

026we paying for this or sourceful giving it to us or how does that work great question so I would say it's a dual um uh payment so sourcewell provides most of the payment and then the the school district does pay some so What's um some a lot or not very much I would say I am like a blue light special for those of you who remember Kmart but um I I would say that you might want to chat with the superintendent Han about that but it's at a heavy discount a lot of our contribution is done in a one lump so when we look at PD so for this particular position we're looking at more in-kind Amy's provided Office Space the workspace things like that so we have an in-kind relationship in order to have

027our expertise here so Amy you have an office at the high school I do oh yep I'm within the Student Success Center where's this welding done do we have welding at the high school now or do they go to the college nope it's at the high school on-year committee um are these all people within the school district yes so there's no businessmen or women involved with the committee not at the the committee School level but we we are going out to the community to ask for their feedback how many businesses are involved with this I mean how many how many contacts do you have where students can maybe contact an owner of a business and they're looking for a job after school or stuff like this I would say you know BHS has a lot

028of business contacts our staff our teachers connect with business professionals on a regular basis we also partner with the Brainerd Lakes chamber so I don't know if I have a number for you but I would say it's growing especially with the new career Pathways yeah because I'm thinking if we're calling this Warrior career Pathways yes I would like to think we want to get our business Community more involved and less involved absolutely okay yes with this new program we're just getting our ducks in a row as it evolves and yes absolutely business connections are very important okay thank you and it helps us prepare students for what our local employers need as well so um all of our I know our CT area has advisory councils where they're regularly connecting with business to make sure

029that our curriculum is aligned with what Workforce is Career and Technical education yes thank you for asking that so our students in this program voluntarily yes they sign up for it or it's a class yes yes that they take we educate them about this opportunity and then yes it's it's ABS it's voluntary so they do get some community service opportunities and they get to volunteer at businesses and that kind of thing so that's all absolutely through this program yes and that networking with business professionals is a very important piece just again to make sure that they are getting opportunities to learn about careers and are ready after graduation to do what they want to do correct me if I'm wrong Dr Han but I think isn't it State Statute that by ninth grade students must

030be we sit down with students and talk to them about their career plans and what they want to do okay yeah so that's really done with our school counselors but that's what's nice about having Amy on staff is she really has that career Focus rather than just well how many courses am I needing for graduation and some of the other issues that our school counselors deal with and specific to this so when she talks about region five so for the past five years and that Readiness the Readiness metrics or the research behind that there's been an advisory group of superintendents and directors of teaching and learning and educational staff that have been meeting and really looking into that research I've been one of those advisory members and really looking at what is our report cards

031when you look at career ready and you look at College ready so we know what research says but how does that research apply to what's available in our five County area so there's been lots of input and there's been working with local Chambers to get that input it builds on we've had Bridges academies so again this is just that expansion of what's needed Madam chair yes go ahead director Road thank you Amy thank you for the uh very informative and exciting uh presentation on what you have provided for in Career Technical um I just want to add that um you know my last teaching assignment was a was a class called service learning that I set up for the district and we uh to uh director Heidemann and others uh points when we had Service

032Learning we had over 400 local businesses Community agencies uh schools uh churches uh you name it private businesses that are kids in service learning were able to go to Monday through Thursday and have a Hands-On educational approach taking their skills they've academically Acquired and applying them to real life situations so Amy as you go forward and then of course uh that that has no longer existed because it was uh the most expensive part of that whole service learning program was a transportation we provided for our student is to and from the the sites that they were they were volunteering at but I still hear from many of my former students that was one of the most um one of the classes that they gained the most from in in providing um life skills personal skills

033social skills job skills you you know you name it so as you go forward Amy um with with the plan I would encourage you to look at trying to provide um more time with Hands-On as volunteers within the community um because Priceless for kids to gain those kind of um skills and experiences as we know a matter of fact I hope that someday we in uh uh in in education um make even the senior year more of a Hands-On approach rather than uh uh and and using our skills that the kids have learned through the 13 years of of Education um to uh to enhance their uh education opportunities and their future opportunities so my point is uh try to include as much Hands-On as you can going for forward thank you I absolutely agree

034director or thank you Amy how many people how many kids are involved in this program well being it's a new program this is the first year yes so actually it'll start next year so we are sunsetting the bridges career academies and we generally have about 80 students complete them um and currently have 11 academies and we're moving to 23 endorsements within those Pathways so correction concentrations it's a it's an area of concentration so for instance I've got five right now you're trying to get to 23. yes yep so we are definitely yeah right so we're going from 11 to 23. yes but there's going to be five pathways so just a big a category for the concentration so like for instance our education to me it's like this could make it confusing yeah so it

035should be kind of simple like your terms right yes what is a dual credit course is that an AP course yes it could be a a course that offers college credit along with high school credits of that to be a young welder or is can you tell me number one it's um a less student loan debt right because that that class will typically transfer if the college accepts it number two it also we believe gives students confidence if they're getting a college credit in high school maybe that's just that one extra step that could get them to see themselves in college if that's something they desire to do cool good question thank you yes thank you thank you Amy thanks Amy appreciate it thanks next step we have our opeb actuary report update with Marcy

036Lord and Jill ordahl good evening laughs all right so um every two years we are required to have an Actuarial Actuarial report done for gasby standards and we consult with Hildy Incorporated Jill Erdahl is here tonight to go over our results similar to the audit they are a consultant of ours and then she'll go through the results and can talk about what she sees maybe at other districts if you guys have questions so it's really exciting topic thanks for having me this evening I'm Jill Erdahl and I'm a Consulting actuary in the Twin Cities so I met Hildy Incorporated and now we're a division of USI Consulting Group so I'll give you the highlights of your results from your most recent evaluation and the terms you'll hear to describe this valuation are for your opeb

037benefits or your gas b75 benefits so those are the benefits that are housed in your contracts that cover mainly post-retirement medical dental and life benefits that you offer to your employees when they retire so we're not talking about any of your pension benefits this evening that your employees you know also get when they retire but again other post-employment benefits or opebs which again are mainly post retirement medical dental and life benefits that are housed in all of your contracts so Marcy has the detailed valuation if you want to see you know more detail on the reports but I'll give you the highlights then tonight and feel free to jump in and ask me any questions as we go along too so this is just for people that are retired say that say it again just

038for retired people well what's going to do with our health insurance costs or any of those benefits of the current people that are working at the school this is just the retired correct yes in our valuation though we have to look at your actively working population because we project and we have to come up with a crude liability yeah for those that are working with you currently but for their post-employment benefits yes so your liability is not for any active benefits that they get while they're actively working but we do have to include that active working population in our valuation because again we need to make projections about who will retire and when and what benefits may they get I feel better already I'm trying to figure this out I was like holy cow what

039are we looking at yes a lot more numbers this is kind of the overview yeah so how do is a page down there we go so on if you go to slide four here's kind of the overview of what you'll find for old pebbs or post retirement Medical Dental life benefits here at Brainerd schools so when you look at post retirement medical benefits that are offered in your contracts we think of there's two kinds of old pubs one results from the state statute on insurance continuation and we all fondly refer to that as the implicit rate subsidy benefit so if any Public Employee in Minnesota when they retire if their public employer has a health plan they have the right to stay on that Health Plan medical and dental plan indefinitely if they meet certain

040eligibility requirements of course when they retire and the kicker is though the public entity has to offer them that coverage at the group or Blended premium rate so that's really a deal for that public retiree Public Employee retiree so we as actuaries figure out how much is that access to that benefit worth and being able to just stay on the plan and pay that group or Blended premium rate and again we call that the implicit rate subsidy and then on top of that we look at though how much of that premium might you pay directly for that employee when they retire if they meet certain eligibility requirements again when they retire so for example how much of the single premium for medical might you pay and for how long again if they meet certain requirements

041so again those are the two kinds of opebs that we talk about that are in your report a direct subsidized benefit and that implicit rate subsidy benefit and then you've also got some hybrid types of designs for some contract groups that are lump sums that go into an HRA when somebody retires and we don't value any implicit subsidy after Medicare eligibility because our assumption is is that they'll drop off your health plan at that point and go to a Medicare supplement type of plan which is not your District plan so you don't have that access benefit anymore at that point and again you do pay some direct subsidies for dental and life to certain groups but again the bulk of your obligation comes from those post-retirement medical benefits yes so you kind of answered one

042one of my questions so we're talking about when someone retires from the district until they become Medicare eligible yes for both that implicit and that direct subsidized benefit and you do have some direct subsidized benefits for some groups that are grandfathered let's say or had to be hired before a certain date that might be paid Beyond Medicare eligibility but right that most of your obligation ends at Medicare eligibility thank you so on Slide Five in your most recent valuation the valuation date was July 1 2022 and that valuation you use then for your financial results for the 22-23 school year and then as a bonus you really get to use each valuation for two disclosure Cycles so you're also going to get to use those base results for the 23-24 uh fiscal year also so

043in this base valuation for 22.23 we looked at 868 active participants from your district and you currently have 88 retirees on your health plan now too that are getting the most subsidized benefits of the 868 active participants 309 of those are what we refer to as grandfathered individuals or they were hired before a certain date so they will have the opportunity to grow into possibly getting a direct subsidized opeb benefit when they retire so you have some of the active participants that when they retire they will only have access or to that insurance continuation or that implicit rate subsidy benefit so that's what we mean by some of your employees are grandfathered or they were hired before a certain date and others were hired after those dates and they'll just have the access benefit or

044implicit yes is that the rule of 90. no so that is a potential rule yeah that's a pension provision okay yeah and but but that that's a good question because uh the rule of 90 if you were hired before July 1 of 1989 you have the possibility to retire in the public pension programs in Minnesota under rule of 90. we do look at that but only for retirement incidents in valuing the post-employment medical dental life benefits so if somebody can retire under rule 190 for their pension they're more likely to retire maybe a little earlier and we take that into account in our calculations but not that not that pension benefit what's the difference of the two you get the 309 that are grandfathered and the 559 that are active participants that are just what's

045the difference I mean I understand the implicit what is just give it to me in simple yeah so so let's say I was hired after the higher date restriction let's say in the teacher contract and you were hired before okay you would have the ability to you know possibly grow into getting part of your single premium paid for by the district for a certain amount of time when you retire and the ones after yeah I qualify for that even yeah even if I retired later the same time as you with the same service Etc I wouldn't have the ability to get that direct subsidized benefit I but I would have that access benefit but I'd have to pay my my own premium at that Blended and group rate gotcha Madam chair yes go ahead director

046Ward so um Jill and Marcy um opeb and gasby were put in uh to protect the liability future of financial liability future of uh districts because the liability uh for retirement benefits retirement benefits were you know 100 in the future going forward in the future so all of this had to be negotiated um it has to be negotiated uh with contracts and so Marcy do you know can you tell us um at the start of when this uh when when the reductions were made or the changes were made and contractually negotiated um what was the uh amount of uh staff eligible for um or pebb and how how has that been reduced now um and going forward going forward when are we going to have um you know significant uh less liability um with OPEC

047benefits do you understand my questions yeah yeah yeah so no those are great questions and um you will have even though you've got those we call them Sunset Clauses in place so those higher date restrictions on who might be able to grow into those direct subsidized open benefits versus not um they're they're more let's say recent uh dates and they vary by contract group but you'll still have a long tail of you know people retiring about those direct subsidized obligations and because they are linked to your the board contributions you um let's just say the even though the group size is decreasing that might get those benefits in the future the overall premium rate that they may get is a direct subsidized benefit is probably going to increase right as premiums increase so it's still

048a little bit of an active liability and there will be a long um tail on that in this District as you work through that but every other year when we do this valuation for you can kind of see how that grandfathered group is getting smaller and how the liability is changing but it will be a little bit of a dynamic liability it won't just decrease because it's linked to health care premiums which will increase even though that group gets a little smaller so but at some point both will go down but it'll be a while for you at this District so does that answer your question yes thank you so the next so slides six seven and eight just give you some information around that implicit rate subsidy benefit or that access benefit so on

049slide six I just give it to you in words um slide seven I just show you you know an actual example for a 60 year old retiree in this District so their claims costs for medical are running about thirteen hundred twenty four dollars a month but yet you know if they didn't have any of the direct subsidized benefit paid for by Brainerd they themselves would have to pay about 813 a month for that single coverage and demand remain on the plan but they're really getting an indirect or a hidden 500 a month benefit by being able to stay on the plan and pay 800 versus being age rated right and having to pay a lot more so again this is the hidden subsidy or implicit benefit that we're valuing for all of your employees due

050to our state statute that mandates that that benefit and then we add on to that how much of that eight hundred dollars might you be paying and for how long and that's really what forms your liability picture here at the district and then the picture of that on slide eight that we're valuing is the blue box labeled early retiree so again it's the difference between claims and what the retirees are paying in premiums so it's that blue early retiree box area that we're really valuing in liability for you and then the next slide is just to show you in pictures the process that we go through with your District so we get all of the input items from your specific data so we get your census or participant information your asset information your claims costs

051information on your medical and dental plans and then we look at your specific opeb provisions and in Minnesota you know even neighboring school districts will have very different opeb Provisions so again it's different than the pension plan that's a state plan uh opeb or post retirement medical benefits do vary from District to district for one reason you know as to how they developed in the contracts over the years but those are specific to each district so we take all those input items we do our number crunching on them and then we come up with your results that are in your financial statement so years ago before gasby the government Accounting Standards Board updated the rules you only had to disclose what your current Year's opeb benefit payments were this was many moons ago so I'm

052dating myself now but uh but then first they came out and said you got to uh show what your crude liability is for what the obligation is going to be for all these possible retirees in the future and now everybody has to follow these same rules so that you can compare one public entity to another and financial statements to make it more apples to apples and you can see the liability you know it may be coming up which you really couldn't see by just disclosing the current year benefit payments so that gives you a little um of the historical background too that it was asked about earlier so the highlights on your results for this valuation are the second bullet is the most important number is that Actuarial accrued liability in your financial statements you'll

053see it referred to as total opeb liability so when the rules were updated in Gatsby 75 they changed the name on you accrued liability to Total opeb liability but it means an accrued liability yours is 20 million as of July 1 22 which is your latest valuation date and then of that 20 million about 7.9 is due to that implicit or hidden subsidy benefit and then the remainder of course is the Ben or the uh liability for your direct subsidized op obligation so about 61 of your liabilities due to those direct subsidized opebs and then about 39 is that implicit liability the other probably number on this page that you really care the most about is that estimated benefit payment number I'm almost at the bottom there the fifth bullet so the actual opeb benefit

054payments that we think you'll make as a school district in the 22-23 school years about 2.1 million now again a piece of that is what's paid toward those implicit benefits and about 1.4 million is what we think you'll make in those direct subsidized Old Pub payments in 22-23 of the 2.1 total but Marcy and her group at year end have to true that up so that's why it's an estimate right now as we're making some of those payments right now so the number one we finished the valuation as an estimate but every year is there's a grueling true up process that goes on to get the actual payments for the year uh the other highlight we talked about the liabilities now the 20 million of accrued liability to offset that you do have an irrevocable

055Old Pub Trust so the good news is is that of July as of July 1 2022 your irrevocable opeb trust had about 18 million in it so 18 million of assets there is for these Opa benefits to be used to pay for those OP benefits as they come due so a 90 funded percentage or status as of July 122 with the assets that are in that irrevocable old pep trust and the monies in that trust can only be used to pay old benefits as they come due so you can't use is that a good number is 90 a good number yes so you've had very good funded percentages for you know quite a few years due to when the school districts were allowed to issue Old Pub bonds to back up this liability uh some

056of the districts like your own didn't make withdrawals from the trust for quite a few years when the market was doing really well so it was a little bit of a double Perfect Storm a double it wasn't a bad Perfect Storm it was a good one so withdrawals weren't being made so you were really kind of uh making contributions but and then the returns were good so that's why you've had a very healthy funded status for quite a while now 90 funded status for old pubs is very good I was telling Marcy when I go to my Actuarial conferences and I say um funded old pebs to my colleagues they look at me like I'm crazy because Nationwide really old pubs are not funded typically like pension benefits are but here in Minnesota there was

057about that year and a half window where you could issue Old Pub bonds to back up the liabilities and that's why we have more funded old pubs here in Minnesota and the benefit of that is that the money's in that Old Pub trust can be invested in asset classes that your general fund cannot be so you have the ability to pay for future OPEC benefits with asset return instead of all just current cash you guys invest that money then is that part of you so I just calculate the liability numbers but we're not the um we don't do we don't invest the asset sometimes I wish I maybe would have been depicted to refund this Marcy I mean are we constantly funding this or do you draw down on this or is it just stays

058there we issued the bonds it all went into the trust and there's been no contribution since but you have been withdrawing benefit payments though yes but we do not know so we're invested pretty conservatively I'm very well like yeah I think you're um are you 60 40 right now um so you you have um some investments in equities and fixed income okay yeah I will too so this number grows every year so oh yes assuming we earn more than we spend we're going to grow the fund well except for this last year okay yeah this last year wasn't great yeah so you're about uh 55 in equity uh oh private Equity 30 domestic Equity fixed income real estate and cash about 15 okay and that's a good lead-in to the next slide um the you

059have to follow the Gatsby 75 disclosure rules you know for disclosing these liabilities in your financial statements but how you choose to pay for these benefits as they come due and how you choose to fund for them is your district is your decision as a district so there's no rules around that that you have to follow but gasby does recommend that you do have a written funding policy just saying what you know how will you you know pre-fund or not for these benefits what is that um even though they want it written that doesn't mean that it can't be changed it can be changed but it's good to have a written funding policy around your opeb strategy and then the investment policy also is yours for that irrevocable opeb trust so districts across the state

060vary why widely as to a lot of them are have a equity fixed income mix some just do fixed income and it you know again that's an individual School District decision as to how you want to invest that a REV Old Pub trust and what your investment policy is so both your funding and your investment policy is your decision as a district but all the disclosure rules under Gatsby 75 of course you have to follow those rules but um the funding decisions are up to you and we do have we have an investment policy and then we have an opeb investment policy so we do have two separate policies if you keep talking about gasby is that federal or state it's it's the government Accounting Standards Board but is that federal or state uh well

061it's for all the disclosure rules for public entities um Across the Nation so if you if your schedule what was that it's it's governed by federal government just a disclosure rules and guidelines but if you um most likely you have a statement that because you've probably you know issued debt you have a covenant probably that says as a district you'll follow all government Accounting Standards Board yeah so and that's that's so that's so just if you work for uh a private Corporation you're following the Fazbear Financial Accounting Standards Board so public entities follow Gatsby yeah it's counting the accounting I think it's something to liken it too yeah well I mean it's fine if we're audited I mean if we're audited to do the feds come in or do the state come in yeah it

062depends but most likely would be the state probably yes so the last little piece of information is uh the when districts were allowed to issue opeb bonds for these liabilities the first year and a half it could be done without voter approval then that window or rules closed you can still issue opeb bonds now for up to your Actuarial accrue liability but now in order to do that you need voter approval so when that rule changed to to voter approval the legislators also added though this possible Annual Old Pub Levy option now you haven't heard much about it because you had to have a unfunded actual accrued liability to be able to possibly apply to this Annual Old Pub Levy and you really haven't been less than 100 funded for many many years so um

063you first of all need to have an unfunded Actuarial accrued liability you have to have Sunset Clauses within your contracts which you do so you do have room this year for a small annual Pebble Levy if you were to decide we do have to wait till the end of the year to see what your actual benefit payments are but it's based on your funded statuses the beginning of the year so Marcy and I we estimate roughly about 200 000 you could Levy for for those benefit payments this year if you'd want to but it's an annual decision you can make just because you do it one year does not mean you have to do it the next or vice versa and I guess we we don't know the magic answer about how long this annual

064Pebble Levy will stay there but it's been it's been there ever since we've been working on these which is a while so but I always should state that because um yeah I don't want anybody to get mad at me if they're like where'd it go so um but yeah we don't know but they haven't haven't we haven't heard any Rumblings they might be taking it away but yeah so there is the ability to pay for some of your benefit payments with that Levy too so you really have your um irrevocable Pub trust you know have a small opportunity with the annual old Pebble Levy and then of course you have your general fund that you could decide to use to pay for some of the old pep benefits too so you really have a lot

065of different levers and a good funded status for your old Pub benefits great thank you so this is something that was John just you know we want just as like a director Ward we won't have to fund or make any decisions on this till after the new year right okay and this like like that's not been an option for us in the past and it's because we're not fully funded um so the option is is we could draw it all from the trust or we could Levy part of it but that's kind of the levy game of what how much room do we have on our living sorry director Ward go go ahead that's right and not uh Dr Han or Marcy correct me if I'm wrong but um the opeb um opeb has always

066been negotiable is it is it I mean it has to be agreement between the management and the union and the labors right still well the implicit rate subsidy part is due to a state statute then that part really I mean can't be negotiated probably because it's a mandated State Statute that hidden or implicit rate subsidy benefit but the direct subsidized benefits are in it come from your individual contracts right so that and still right Marcy I mean it's still that way right correct correct okay and then the other thing that I wanted to uh point out is um no I forgot it I'm sorry I can't remember right now so thank you for that answer though on the negotiations part of course okay any other questions okay thank you so much thanks thank you thank

067you learned a lot yeah all right moving on to new business Madam chair wait a minute Madam chair yeah I remembered what it was Marcy wait a minute so um so um also I want to make make a point about when a certified staff retires and this and this directly impacts opeb uh funding as well when a certified staff retires they retire at the level for health care benefits dental benefits and other benefits that they are at and any increases going forward are are take had to be have to be paid by the retiree not by the district is that still correct uh actually they are automatic so if ever someone retires and the contribution goes up in the future negotiations that contribution does go to that retiree it's not um they don't pay the

068amount that was at their retirement okay all right thank you for that clarification thank you all right moving on again to new business we have a presentation on blueprint 181 a project update and I see we've got UTC Market you know thank you for joining us foreign good evening Mark Needham with ICS project manager overseeing the Washington Educational Services building remodel um and like director spirit said we got an opportunity to go out and see the progress of the project today um and see kind of how things are taking shape from the design and first I'll go through our project update if I click the ray button nope all right Janet I promised I wouldn't ask for help but here I am there we go thank you all right so the Wesley project Center update

069um the first base will show here and there's been some progress since I've put this together as a lot of you saw today um but here looking at the Welcome Center the blue arrow gives us kind of the point of view that we're looking down the hallway um and here you can see in the in the picture that we've gotten to a point where we've progressed past uh past Demolition and we've started putting the spaces back together you can see the framing the overhead MEP or mechanical and electrical and plumbing um systems uh which is you know generally the the largest part of this project of what we're installing those going in place um and kind of the the intent here is to provide new safe and secure entrance to the space and then give

070better access to students enrolling in the district any questions on the Welcome Center okay the next space we'll look at here the boardroom um so just kind of a quick update here this again the space is getting updated for the mechanical and electrical systems to provide better ventilation and airflow to the space you also see that we're doing some work on the floors we're getting some new uh carp or getting prepared to install new carpet and ceilings and then notably one patch spot that we've all looked at for quite a while and has been noted many times so getting that cleaned up foreign interesting piece here so the the locker infills we call them this is where we were able to uh use the space behind the lockers between the classrooms and the hallway to

071be able to run all the mechanical systems which saved quite a bit of Demolition and trying to find or create new routes for them through the building so utilizing that you can see here the picture on the left just to show progression is before we started Construction picture in the middle is kind of as we're installing all the mechanical systems so that's what is going to supply air to the spaces and then the picture all the way on the right is what it looks like when it's buttoned back up so things to come are the wooden molding that you can kind of see above the lockers on the picture on the left and then painting the space and and finishing it up bathrooms so another big portion of the project is to update the bathrooms

072so they are Ada accessible and meet codes as far as spacing and being able to you know well have a partition that covers you when you're using that for the restroom so a couple of the updates here the two pictures on the left are before construction um and kind of what in the scenario the existing conditions that we had and then on the right is the current state of the bathrooms uh they've been demolished to a point where uh we're we're ready and have started installing a new tile on the floors you can see here uh you know we've got new spaces lined out for the sinks on the right and then all new toilets and fixtures and everything that goes with it to bring them update and another note here too the the tile

073um that we're using is uh to try and mimic what the existing space has so it kind of stays with the historical nature of the building and a quick update on third floor although the scope is limited up there we are working on the bathrooms and notably here uh starting to put paint on walls so we've gotten to the point where we've passed all the Demolition and now we're starting to put it back together and it's just kind of a way to illustrate that and you can see all the poly and the paint that's going in place yeah uh the Pine Street entrance so this is uh to provide a new safe and secure entrance um off of Pine Street instead of having a student drop off on Oak Street which is a pretty busy

074space on quite a bit going on there it gets a little bit congested right so this is to allow uh drop off to take place on Pine Street um this space will include if you can look on the picture on the right there's going to be a Lula lift or a wheelchair lift that allows for Ada access so we can get students in through there it also provides a safe and secure entrance space that will allow us to control access and as you can see in the picture on the left we're opening up doors and wrapping up demolition there and kind of interesting if you look at the structure above that's the bottom of the bleachers in the gym yeah and I think that's it for project update I know there is there's been a

075little bit more progress since these pictures been put together and walls are and more drywall's been installed more tiles been installed and progress continues and so that leads or any questions on progress as far as the school board meeting room itself do you have any special HVAC in there to get rid of a lot of hot air it's a little levity for tonight uh yes and there's photographic evidence of it there it is the ductwork shown in place okay good all right so that um so we do have one item for board action stop me if I'm jumping ahead here but we have a pricing request so we're we're seeking approval for pr8 for the addition of some casework and syncs uh in the Washington Educational Services building uh not to exceed 68 547.82 cents

076um I believe all the information's in the um or all the contractor backup and pricing request documentation so all the updated drawings uh and or excuse me drawings and elevations and details um that built this system out um so the the uh the reasoning for the request is we've identified a few rooms that are missing or would benefit from the addition of some casework to it uh and those are in the early childhood classrooms on the um first floor west side and that's four rooms with eight sinks and all the mechanical and electrical and plumbing tie-in that goes along with it how come it says in the deal that is this is not a change order isn't this a changeover or this is an addition what is this yes this is a this would be

077a change order to the car if you read the win Seth thing I think it's first sentence that says this is not a change order it doesn't matter this doesn't make any difference you know we know what it is that language in their narrative is really just providing narrative direction to the contractors to provide pricing it's not a physical direction to execute the change event oh I see I'm sorry I misunderstood it yeah yeah so they don't issue the change order don't start putting them in right until the vote's done nope that's a good yeah I don't know what you're asking oh great we'll entertain a motion are we question uh we're voting on they're going down is 68 000 for eight sinks and then we're going to have another vote on who is awarded

078no it's the whole thing it's the it's all of those combinations all four of these organizations are involved in the 68 000. yes and so thank you yeah uh and maybe to further clarify would Seth they created the pricing request for the contractors to price and the contractors are thielen Holden and high tech and that's the pricing is uh provided by them thank you for that clarification yes it is okay somebody's got to do it I'll make a motion we approve the 68 000 I'll second it all right good job we have a motion by director Brecken and a second by director Don delinger any more discussion if not we'll do a roll call vote yes more yes Michelle yes yes thank you gentlemen thanks I've got some questions uh I know last at the

079last board meeting I had raised the issue of where they're you know some some change orders that were kind of out of order and whatnot and I think it was uh Mr Damian Williams who said well yeah there's going to be some change orders when we have a a a referendum of 300 and uh 34 million and it kind of just that kind of just went over the top of my head and now in between that meeting and today's meeting some of the public have gotten a hold of me saying I thought the issue was for 205 million and for sake of transparency and I know Dr Han is all in favor of transparency she wants it we want it Etc I don't care what happened with other boards I'm only concerned about what what

080goes forward and so we had 29 million dollars extra we could spend okay let me finish and Mercy she came through again and she explained it to me I want to explain it to all of you it's like you go out and you're going to buy a house let's say your mortgage Banker said you can buy a house for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the interest rate is going to be at four percent you're out looking you get a call from your mortgage Banker they say the interest rate has dropped now to two percent so now you can go look for a house at two hundred thousand and it's not going to change your payment nor is it going to change the length of time that we have to pay on this so

081what I wanted to do because people came up and they were asking me about this I just wanted to be very transparent we're not spending you know some people said well we only approve 205. that's true but the point is we were able to spend more because we got Bond rates a lot lower we got favorable interest rates and that's why we've got the extra 29 million now one question that I haven't been able to have answered yet uh where the public can hear is what did we spend the 29 million dollars on extra I mean I shouldn't use the word extra but what did we say 29 million on and if you could just give a high level you know I don't need to know that we you know put in I have 504

082line items which one do you want to discuss no I'm serious but I'm not I'm joking but I'm not joking but at a high level um I I want to talk about prior to blueprint 181 going to vote in the community there were there were physical needs assessments done on all of our facilities and I don't have the exact number in front of me here um and that that was seven years ago when we went through that process but through the conversations and Marcy maybe can recite some of it and I know that lane had it on the top of her head but there were 330 some million dollars worth of identified needs across the entire School District right that was the needs that we identified when we did the physical needs assessment when we

083did the listening sessions and the community engagement sessions and all those things the appetite for the amount of the needs that we could address was that 205 million dollar Mark right your analysis of how we were able to get more funding is mostly correct you know obviously there were there were donations and contributions made not only from the private sector but from sourcewell and a number of other places that that contributed additional money that added into the additional 29 million and some change okay the interest earnings were higher our bond sales interest rates were lower you're correct we didn't we didn't there has not been up any more than what was on that ballot back in 2018 okay the big ticket items some of the things that we were able to do um just a

084few quick bullet points we over nine million dollars of construction value was added to Brainerd High School to address the a-wing classrooms and the a-wing classrooms is our academic wings so when that project went out to bid we didn't have academic Wing remodeling in there we added that into the project that was what the previous board went forward with we had a very moderate remodel at Washington the building Mark just gave us the update on WE expanded that because we had some additional health and safety money which can improve the ventilation which showed you pictures of the majority of that project that we added was an increased ventilation and increased Comfort there there was an expansion at South Campus for about five million 5.2 million dollars from Source well um there was a full-size gym

085at Baxter Elementary we added a full-size gym at Garfield Elementary that covered cost overages when we were bidding during covid and we had the original estimates of these of these projects Mark you got Lowell on the top of your head I mean we estimated Lowell at about an 8 million dollar construction value came in around nine right and we were able to cover all of those rapidly inflating construction costs during colvid and labor shortages and material shortages we covered all of that with the additional revenues that we had available to us as part of the referendum so we haven't added a penny more than what was can what was committed to in 2018. right and I I should say to the to the taxpayers I mean obviously we're able to get more project done and

086I wasn't I wasn't trying to infer that I was just trying to explain people were asking me well holy Smokey has 29 million dollars more than what we voted on and trying to explain it and and Marcy did an excellent job of explaining that to me uh this afternoon and uh it it makes 100 sense yeah um almost every single project when we go into the design phase and we're sitting down with user groups and we're listening to everybody we have no predefined idea of what the Project's going to be so we let all that information come in then when we look at it and say what can we afford there's always a list of things that are left over extra that we weren't able to you know right and and that's that difference between

087that 205 and that over 300 million dollars worth of need we were able to tackle a bunch of that um unidentified need okay thank you Reid yeah thank you Madam chair yes director Ward wasn't there I'll read was it there are several million dollars to take the uh hot air out of the boardroom as well we made we made sure there's a diffuser above every single chair [Laughter] great thank you thank you both appreciate it all right next we have a presentation from the American Indian parent advisory committee do you need another chair I'm getting one more I think I'll be really brief because I am not the American Indian parent advisory committee but I am honored to kick it off and introduce the American Indian parent advisory committee who are here today to share

088with all of you I have been honored to be able to sit um beside them in their meetings for the past year and really I'm very grateful for the dedication and the time that and the work of the American Indian parent advisory committee and really their growth mindset towards the district and making recommendations and ensuring that all of our students are able to do better and um and that we're moving forward as a district so I um I will turn it over to these lovely people standing behind me um and let them speak and share more about their recommendations for the district thank you I don't know if we can change this so that we can actually see um direct reward I think it puts them up there but then if you have once in

089a while if you have like a presentation yeah we're going to just speak to you so if you close that PowerPoint we'll close this well I don't know if that's still up from the construction thing yeah I've just probably ruined it I just start closing things looks good job okay we wanted to be able to see you so so boujou uh we're going to start off in a way um and we understand that when we start off in this way of first offering our assema that elevates the conversation and that we ask for that in a good way to be heard and in Partnership support for positive growth in the district this is the way that we have begun every year for the past five years in that time this request has extended Beyond this

090boardroom calling in families to join in this work families that have enrolled their children because of the positive dialogue in the district volunteers and state leaders that have provided immense support to the district and the indigenous students we have also begun with the things that we are thankful for in the district the aipac tries to acknowledge our district for the achievement and accomplishments in the building of relationships Community Partnerships and growth so this year we'd like to share these seven week witch that's thank you we appreciate the inclusion of the APAC in the process of finding our superintendent the position directly impacts our native students and Families we appreciate the inclusion of native students input in the process after all the superintendent is someone they will work with and see regularly thank you be glitch

091we have noticed the dedication in school board representation in our APAC meetings we understand that this voluntary this is voluntary in how it can be time consuming we thank the board members who volunteer to share our space and learn with us and we would like to thank resource director Angie Bennett for the work with our APAC to help make a more transparent and Equitable process for interviewing and hiring Apec would also like to extend our thanks to the superintendent for their support we see you holding strong in this work we'd like to acknowledge the hiring of a full-time indigenous student cultural liaison Izu who is anishinaabe we have seen a positive impact on our students and the bridging of parent-teacher relationships as a result Apec would also like to acknowledge the hiring of a director

092of equity Candace her leadership is admirable in her pursuit of equity this is a much appreciated position and we see the extreme value of the individual that has been placed there mm-hmm so we intentionally try to walk in this room keeping our feet well grounded in our responsibilities walking this Earth those responsibilities can include the teachings of our grandfathers honesty love courage truth wisdom humility and respect when we come we have heard that some view this as a contentious process and take our honesty and Truth as individual criticism we always try to walk with the courage and humility to respect and love others in this process we are only sitting opposite you because this is the way the system is designed positional in our hearts and Minds the aipac exists out of the leadership of

093those who came before us to establish statutory requirements that having having collaboration and advisement from caregivers of indigenous students in the district and that critical nature of the relationship is reciprocal each year the aipac community is asked to vote on whether the district is following all the statutory requirements and meeting the needs of indigenous students through our responsibility to try to live by the seven teachings we are compelled to respond with honesty and Truth in this vote over the last several years we have provided the rubric that we are using to evaluate the district which each of you should have within your school board packets you have all the information and resources to guide you you do not have to wait for our official vote to determine where the district lies in this work what

094will you do to carry the weight to the positive change that's needed we know that there are individual efforts and individual apathy this is a fundamental this is fundamentally about the systems change that is generated from the roots and supported from the very top leaves of leadership Beyond individuals how is this work being held up for those who want to support children and how is it being corrected with those that perpetrate inequities in the system knowingly or on knowingly we have voted non-concurrents unanimously as a committee and have a series of recommendations that we see as interrelated just like the parts that make up a healing quilt the APAC has decided on four recommendations number one it is recommended that ISD 181 apply and participate in the mde dream catcher project this is related to

095the rubric six data based decision making and specifically rubric 29 in that section we know both Based on data and experiences that students that are black brown and Indigenous have a higher representation in the special education and their families are requesting supportive strategies to navigate assessments and culturally relevant practices thank you we also have encountered that teachers in the district are also requesting culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy and understandings implicit biases that can affect decisions occur unconsciously although implicit bias is unintentional the results can affect our behaviors and attitudes therefore creating barriers these barriers can include negative impacts on student growth and develop in development because of further marginalization these biases can also result in a reduced recruitment hiring of a diversified Workforce and ultimately difficulties in retaining the diverse Workforce or diverse staff another

096outcome of this can be potentially more damaging to cultures who have been widely invisible in the places like our education system how can an environment adequately welcome individuals into an environment where there is a fundamental lack of understanding for who they are this recommendation touches on the rubrics of creating a welcoming environment actively recruiting American Indian staff and teachers and teacher and District training our third recommendation APAC representation during indigenous education hiring process positions that directly serve populations as such as Liaisons between populations and the district should have Community representation in the hiring process from the community that they intend to serve this representation should be Beyond school-based employees and be solely in the capacity of creating community-based representation this is important that decisions are made not for the community but instead are made with

097the community we also recommend that the district creates a retention plan that includes culturally relevant practices for a diverse Workforce again how can a person feel welcomed in an environment where there is little to no understanding of their individual truths and identifying truths we see another barrier created by bias and another opportunity to resolve such barriers by creating a welcoming environment encouraging Community involvement through faculty enrichment that has culturally cultural relevance to our indigenous students and our first nation employees important to recruitment and intention and retention last year's recommendations actually interrelate with this so we'd like to call your attention to the rubric for B culture which is number 20 and number 22. we will not be reading all of the rubric recommendations but some that will help you understand that direction number 20 is

098about tribal leaders elders Community representation and parents that are on campus full implementation looks like my district school or tribe offers planned activity or events classes and services and has worked to create a welcoming environment for informal visits in American Indian Community Representatives that could be tribal leaders and elders and or parents regularly visit campus and last year's recommendations that would also relate is 3B educator Effectiveness communication collaboration and professional development with number 12 collaboration with tribes and American Indian Community agencies to identify policies and practices impacting American Indian students performance and attendance full implementation my district school or tribe regularly collaborates with the local American Indian tribes and or American Indian Community agencies in a meaningful and timely manner to identify tribal policies or cultural practices that affect American Indian students school performance especially

099attendance number 13 staff awareness of policies and practices that impact American Indian student performance and attendance with full implementation being in my district school or tribe nearly all staff are aware of tribal policies or cultural practices that affect American Indian students school performance especially attendance through systemic communication efforts including new teacher onboarding boarding processes number four language and culture classes this would be rubric 27. there needs to be collaboration with the Apec and the development of the First Nation indigenous native language and culture classes the Apec should be consulted When developing plans with indigenous programming with learning goals classroom space and curriculum that will include Regional language classes to be offered to all students the loss of culture and language was intentionally executed against our communities by government policy disguised as education the indigenous families

100and the students would like to see intentional efforts to provide an education that is reflective of our original language and culture thank you for listening uh-huh I have a question so number three Apec representative at all interviews well then are you guys going to stick around to manage these people why would you get to hire them if they don't work for you so here's and then it doesn't say for all interviews specifically if this is a liaison position that is intended to work between the school and the community that there should be Community representation from that Community specifically so right now in our in our School District we have 100 paid out of um of the American Indian funding that is intended for our native students we have Liaisons that work between our families and

101our students and the district right and so specifically on those types of hires that Community representation should be there because those positions are intended to bridge between the school and the community that they are intended for I misunderstood well thank you for your question were some of these issues that you're raising tonight were they raised with previous boards because remember now this is this is almost a brand new board and I'm just curious of what recommendations did you provide last time and are they similar to what they are now has any progress been made yes I would say that progress has been made and every year we come with four recommendations and we look at those recommendations as ones that can be accomplished within a one-year span before we come back right and so there

102are things that um that are building off of previous recommendations but not staying stagnant within that I would not say that that was the case early on in our I think it's been six years actually maybe seven years since we've voted non-concurrence five years since we've had the pattern of four recommendations for a few early on there was little to no progress and we were building the same recommendations into that and we would have said that today had that been the case but right now I feel like we're refining some of those recommendations because sometimes it's difficult for the district maybe to understand like I'm just saying like generally to understand what we mean by that so welcoming environment was included last year and there has been progress in terms of bringing people like inviting

103them to events that are happening and those kind of things right we're like this following this week we're going to have a flag ceremony that that tribal leadership and dignitaries have been invited to and they're donating Flags to our to our high school right that represent the tribes that many of our students and our families come from right and so those kind of things are progress but then at the same time we're dealing with issues that are related to lack of knowledge and training which that kind of subvert that welcoming environment if people don't understand where our students and families are coming from or the practices that they may have it can create where you don't feel like you belong in an environment and so that's why we're building off of that welcoming environment and

104saying this is really related to training and understanding and the in the teachers we're hearing too are are requesting that same thing because they feel like they're not adequately prepared and understand a history that's been widely invisible in a people you know that have been widely invisible in our systems one thing to add on to what Govinda shared is in the in the past um when when we first started or when impact first began about seven years ago I think there's a cultural shift that had to occur with within the school board but also within the administration and then faculty and staff as well and I think we're well on our way to to adjusting that or turning that rather large ship so to be clear there there have been a lot of positives that

105have occurred over over the years um and I think on the front end what was her third were just the negatives but that was important as well there had to be that to hold people like your yourselves toes to the fire um to to hear us there's definitely a culture of listening to begin with the culture of actually hearing has evolved over time and and then also the culture of partnership has has really taken us that next step where the board Administration and faculty staff now are looking this at this more of a what can we do towards this end other than a um what are we doing to screw up and whatnot and uh the the items that are listed here before you really are um an intent to continue moving us forward on

106that overall Continuum towards um eventual um compliance let me let me ask this question Charles are you still on the equity committee am I on the equity committee Equity task force task force okay how many how many other uh indigenous people are on that task force besides yourself Mary Sam's a member okay I'm just trying to get a gauge I mean so you are representative on that then coordinators as well okay cool and there's been an individual on um like I'm still on the district advisory committee and whatnot so so there's been an effort a significant effort especially with Administration to to Really begin walking the the talk which um well I just wanted to make sure that you guys were represented on on that task force and if you were to give us a

107grade from a to F what would you give us right now we debate the subjectivity of grades they're all that matters so I have a question you know there's 33 different indicators on the rubric is there any benefit to the district or the board or or leadership to know where we stand based on what your committee has discussed and yes that that's a great the first year that we use the rubric actually our recommendation we did it as a parent committee and then our recommendation was that the school board and the leadership do that same thing right and that we come together and discuss like even that inconsistency or or consistency of understanding between those right and so yes I think that it's highly beneficial to understand what those those statutory requirements are and then

108also those best practices that are listed in there and like that Continuum of what that looks like which I think really helps our Converse stations for sure because that's what we're looking at so now you're jumping ahead because that's our next steps right so we're in a continuous Improvement so they've reviewed and given recommendations right now Administration board you're going to come back we review we make the next steps okay so there'll be a response written back so we can continue moving forward this what concerns me is that from what I've been told and straight meow Charles or you or whatever is that every time you guys have voted the school's flunked and it's never is there ever going to be a time do you think in the near future I mean do you think

109that the school is getting close or is it just a wish list or you can just keep adding to and adding to and adding to and adding to you know I mean I think that is why I would say that the a through f grade is subjective right whereas rubrics are a little bit more of a step towards having some concrete understanding of what was it actually working on insurance thing I mean you're the concurrent or you're not correct exactly our vote is saying that you are following all of the statutory requirements which are actually listed in the rubric right and that you're meeting the needs of all Native students right and so in that case the rubric can be a guiding force of that and that's part of the reason why we started off

110in the way that you don't actually have to wait for us to tell you this this isn't like an added laundry list of things that we just like magically pull out of nowhere this is all interrelated to the statutory requirements that were already in place right and so in order to meet all of those yeah the district has some progress that they'll have to make and it's probably not going to happen in one year and I think we've established that in terms of like each time we make these recommendations our our goal is that it continuously moves that needle towards full implementation on that rubric but you are seeing progress yes because the first time that we did the rubric we we basically were not showing up on on any of those indicators right and

111so in the kind of dialogues that we're having the people that are joining our meetings the the questions the discussions the progress that has been made is is immense in terms of like our district was not even disaggregating data to know what was happening with their native students let alone any other demographic of students racially right and so now we have that but it took us three years of asking for that for in order to see the right data and that's that's a that's makes a ton of difference on knowing what's happening exactly and so now we're having discussions about what the actual data looks like and that's why some of our recommendations even reference that in terms of the kinds of things that we would like the district to get involved with right and

112so this is not this is not something that we're just like sitting around looking for reasons to come here we are all volunteers we are not paid by the district we come here out of our hearts and souls and for our children and the children of the district and the community what are those that's important to keep in mind from where I said as a school board as Administration faculty and staff is it's important to be mindful of of the lens that you view this information it isn't really a black and white and I think I think director Don Langer you're you're catching on to that it's not a black and white it's not a finite issue at this point it's it's again a Continuum it's it's a process on the front end years ago

113the board was more listening it through the through the lens or looking at it through the lens of what do we do wrong and the fact that I'm kind of getting hung up on the on the non-compliance piece that's not really the objective here the objective is more of moving moving this this needle forward in terms of these items this rubric that's going to benefit indigenous students and it's going to benefit them in the long run which then will benefit the schools District as as well so the way I like to look at these type of things is really I remember back in the when I was younger that you'd see all these little drawings and paintings that when you look at it straight on you can't see the picture but you kind of have

114to cross your eyes to to see what the actual photo is or the picture within the picture and it's important for everybody to be looking at it again through a different lens and sometimes it's a bit uncomfortable as a school board member it definitely is because you're hearing things that maybe are not that we don't deem you as something you're working well at today but the one important piece is it's it's it's a large process it's it's it's become very positive for our group and also for the school district the relationship that is there and then finally just uh I hope everybody just continues to stay the course because I think we're in a healthy place right now but any questions you might have are really important and towards that end especially like you said

115it's a it's a newer board so a lot of you might this might be new so kind this might feel like you're getting your hand slapped but really it's not it's it's it's more of a kind of a report card kind of a uh just uh a summary director Ward thank you madam chair yeah thank you madam chair and thank you uh APAC folks for um educating us tonight because it's not a a through F kind of thing or we've flunked or whatever and Charles said it well um the more we learn about each other no matter who we are the better off our whole society is and so you educated us tonight there's some things that we can all do better we've made progress and no matter who and what you are we need

116to learn from each other and respect each other and grow from that and so thank you for your input and feedback tonight and uh keep it up thank you I just wanted to say one thing I mean each of the seven Miguel's thank you four five six seven years ago I would have never came in this room I would have came in with chips on both shoulders and just waiting to a fight and I see that this is more of a a well-being welcoming environment I heard on the radio today of like a bunch of awards that that Brainerd school district has has gotten from the state and for the first time since my kids started school here I was proud of that so in in knowing that um you're open to hearing us and

117working alongside of us to um work towards some of the compliance or concurrence issues um I'm actually hopeful and I will keep moving um sharing my experience I was kind of uneasy coming here tonight but I think that this is a step forward and I'm I'm excited to see where this leads one thing to keep in mind is in this was shared earlier in one of the positives but for the community as well as the board the the important pieces with aipac it isn't just the US four handsome people sitting here that are on the board it's also there's two board members that that are part of this APAC process as well so now members from your board are actually at these meetings as well so it's a very active very real process that you

118all would have access to and to your representatives are part of this so we're not something that's that's just completely out of the left field this is a legitimate process that we've been working through and uh that's what's made the process so nice as well is by having two board members be be a part of this this uh this effort and more families and really the goal is hopefully to be compliant because as a parent an indigenous parent uh we have other things we'd like to work on in terms of meeting the academic needs of our children than having to come back here you know and discuss and educate we will that's important education is key but the goal is for all of us yourselves included is to eventually move Beyond this and we're all

119in compliant and uh meeting the academic needs of our indigenous students and uh and and finding other things to work on to to continue to benefit those students okay thank you so our work tonight as a board is to acknowledge the documentation and the report and then we have I believe it's 60 days to think this over and and work through it and have a response for the group so thank you and will you describe what this is for us real quick so this is a traditional offering and these can actually be put either outside or we can collect them from you and bring them out for you later on or you can choose to hold on to it I mean that's up to you as well but we would like to be able to

120help you to take care of that but just for this conversation anytime that we come um anytime we go to our elders if we are going to have a conversation that is of deep importance we try to offer this the same first and foremost and that brings the conversation to the level that we need to be able to have so we're we're following our own teachings within that and so we can we can come and actually collect those or if you choose to keep it or take it out yourself and put it outside that's okay too usually we do that during the daytime though do you want anything else to uh right here okay there are four four sacred herbs and plant medicines that we use um yeah right um Cedar is one tobacco is

121one uh sweet grass just one and Sage is another one and the tobacco we use we burn these medicines um we bundle them some of our our children and our people will carry a medicine pouch just to keep those herbs close to us where we don't have to always burn them we don't always have to take them outside we can keep a prayer with us so that's that's where we started with a gift a gift of tobacco for your use for your prayers for your health and you know good coming together in a good way oh yeah all right so we will entertain a motion that we 've John gave us motion director Ward just thank you John we have a motion by director Ward second and the second we're just voting by director Don

122delinger gotcha any further discussion if not we'll do a roll call vote [Music] yes thank you thank you very much thank you all right next on the agenda we have the approval of the food service main distributor bed for the school year with Alyssa Thompson thanks for joining us what do we got up next good evening everybody sorry just I'm not apparently choke to death before I come up here okay so our current distributor bid ends at the end of this school year we sent out requests for bids and five companies oh wait a second here it's a Mountain Dew [Laughter] there you go RJ you're fixed thank you okay um our current Food Service bid or contract ends at the end of this school year we're currently with upper Lakes we have been with

123them since 2013. we sent out requests for bids in January and five companies return bids our main distributor contract includes School formulated products this bid is for grocery items our contract does include transportation of commodity goods from the state Warehouse to ours as well it does not include milk paper chemicals bread produce small equipment those items are Bid and held by separate companies in the bid we sent out a small Market Basket this included roughly 60 items and we asked for fixed fee pricing regular case pricing and an extended price the extended price is the total per line item times the yearly estimated usage we used a 200 Point scoring rubric to score each bid submitted I have included both of the analysis and the recap in your board agenda with the scoring results the

124scoring guide included price service operations customer service School related experience computer capabilities and references after careful consideration and calculation the bid with the best score was Cisco out of St Cloud with 195 points they received the most points because they had the lowest fixed fee at a dollar Thirty and the lowest Market Basket total they also have excellent references have a deep product line and a great understanding of school related needs they also confirmed that they were able to meet the delivery schedule they are the only distributor that was able to confirm delivery schedule which is incredibly important So based off of these results it is the recommendation to the board that Cisco foods be awarded the 2324 main distributor contract does that anyone have any questions about how we scored or companies Madam chair

125yes go ahead director Ward um Alyssa can you tell us if uh you know the universal meals was just signed into law does that impact the bit at all no so um with universal meals passing none of the nutrition standards will change because of that so this bid won't be impacted At All by that thank you have you heard at all it's been reported in the media Kraft Heinz is proposing to provide to school districts throughout the country are called Lunchables yeah does that impact no so we are we currently carry a product that we use predominantly in the summer called any timers which is the off-brand version of a Lunchable gotcha I don't use those really in the school year unless it's being served as like a alternate meal to a main line I

126use a Lunchable type product as a grab and go item or a park item when we do our summer program gotcha you've heard of that program that they're yes there isn't there's been some reports about it I I don't really Lunchables will be coming I must I my understanding is Lunchables will be coming to all of these Distributors anyways this in the school year they'll be a product that is offered I do know that upper lakes does not have a contract with Heinz currently I do believe Cisco does have a contract with Heinz so that's nothing we have any control over yeah this is what the distributor provides based upon whether or not the vendor would like to do business with a specific distributor thank you motion thank you we've got a motion for approval

127from director dondalinger is there a second well second it was very thorough and a second from director Brecken any other discussion if not we'll do a roll call vote yes [Music] thank you thank you Next Step we'll have the approval of the ratification of the confidential contract Angie Bennett thank you good evening good evening I have a very irritating scratch in my throat so I'm going to try not to cough through this so I'm going to try to keep it short so I don't make a fool of myself so you should have received a copy of the Education Minnesota Brainerd confidential unit contract that is up for approval tonight and I just wanted to see if there were any questions this contract has been completely revamped it took some time but we were able to

128meet agreement and wanted to bring that forth to you for review and approval so I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have foreign did you get it [Music] I read the narration from Heidi Dr Han yeah she updated and sent the red line through so any changes that happened you have that updated link that came through yeah I have a copy here excuse me Dr Han is this the stuff we've talked about this afternoon where there was the one person and now there's like three people or whatever so it's taken time because it's it's been so the units had to come together so there's members of our unit back there so when you look at bring everything up to date that's what looks so it's taken it took a while it took a

129while but I think that's you know nice thing is when you look at negotiations and language there was a lot of new language that needed to be put forth the unit did a great job with that they worked with their representative so what's coming before you is that agreed upon so they've voted in agreement with the district that's why we're presenting this contract for you for ratification foreign thank you for your work on this energy oh yeah it was a team effort is there a motion so moved thank you director Heidemann is there a second oh second and a second by director Brecken any further discussion any questions if not we'll do a roll call vote yes I have to vote no I haven't seen it yes is there a spear yes John Moore yes

130thank you thanks Angie good luck with the scratchy throat good luck with your scratchy throw I just got done with it well next to the exciting part of the agenda we get to go through I think when I counted I think we have 13 policies I want to get a miniature horse yeah yeah that is under the service animal I saw um that's a statutory definition I have yet in my 27 now 28 years of education to to meet one or to know of a district that has one but it is in statutes um but a lot of those first readings when you look at the first group under item five of those uh policies there's no substantial change so that's why we're just looking um you actually did adopt the service therapy there was

131a change in words that should have said registered adult Handler rather than the word staff otherwise the other changes have been based on there might have been a word changed in a statute or a definition and that's what's reflective in these first batch of policies so they can all be approved in when reading and in your packet any change of word is highlighted in red but there's no substantial change to policy so we um are reviewing these because they're up for review but there is no substantial changes which means the the red lines that are within the policy that you have with you or that you've seen don't change any of the content or the context it's some of them were main changes or rule changes there's no substantive changes nope so I'll make a

132motion we approve the review of the msba policies as presented thank you we've got a motion by director Brecken second and a second by director Don delinger any discussion if not we'll do a roll call vote yes Kevin Boyles yes um thank you Janet all right up next we've got the first reading of a bunch of policies here so again when we look at a first reading these are some policies that have had some uh more substantial change or some organizations so I'll address 202 and then if Candace wants to do 4 14 415 and 202 would happen with school board officers what we added in policy is the definition of what that officer is so it's not just a red line Scratch Out change of word we actually put in a paragraph of what

133the definition of that officer is so that's the substantial change to 202 because it's substantially recommend two readings prior to approval I can connect on 414 and 4K 14.1 and 415 so those three are all about mandated reporting so we are all a School District employees school board members we are all mandated reporters and those just provide some definition updates as definitions have changed in statute and then there's a new form from mde that we have to use anytime we have to do a confidential student maltreatment reporting form so it would just be an update to that form doesn't really change the business we're doing just how we do you know some of that business and Reporting motion emotion from director Don delinger and a second from director Ward any questions discussion if not we'll

134do a roll call vote yes [Music] yes thank you thank you all right up next we've got the second and final reading of three uh policies actually two two policies oh no here it goes I can feel it already um no changes since the last time we met about these two policies um there were no recommended changes when I first presented so this is just the second and final reading of harassment and violence and drug-free workplace drug free school I do have a question and I told this is the third and final reading right don't ask me I read it I read it and read it and now I found something I just have a question on it it's uh paragraph I see here once that would be the enforcement paragraph on which policy I'm

135sorry Angie I'm sorry it's 4 18. okay 418 paragraph three under the enforcement uh currently it reads a student who violates the terms of this policy shall be subject to discipline in accordance with the school district's discipline policy such discipline may include suspension or expulsion from school my question relates to what policy is that the school district's discipline policy what number is it and secondly I'd like to see some language in there that requires parent notification okay so we can look up on the website I'll give you the number but under discipline policy there is parent notification yeah so I think that's where it's okay to the policy which will outline how we yeah can we reference them better what that school district discipline policy is by stating that as policy and blah blah blah

136we could we also have a cross-reference on the back page to that policy when we have related policies that have that's what all that stuff is that's what all that stuff is that's statute and got a printed copy for you right I got this one you never sent me the other one I just want to make sure I mean I would I guess my caution would be because we do reference other policies in policies is that we would continually kind of have to revamp because if we made a change to the discipline policy then we would then again have to revise this policy if there was a change you know that's why we include the cross references so we include the legal references where we have to abide by them and then the other policies

137where there is a excerpt related to this in there sure you think we're pretty well covered I think we're covered because in the school discipline policy it really kind of goes 506.2 It goes through the procedures of what that looks like for student discipline okay do you think the average parent would understand that well I personally I mean I'm a parent of a kid Owens I know I don't want to be a labor this but I just yeah I just thought it was important that parents are also notified that when a child is is going to be suspended or expelled you know obviously yeah I mean and that's kind of the automatic portion of it it's just stating that if this policy is violated or those things may occur okay it doesn't even say that

138I was just testing yeah okay if you you guys feel I mean I'm I'm open to well yeah I mean if we're gonna I don't want to be changing all these policies because of something that's in the cross reference you could spend hours sitting here every night if you want to cry that's why I like the legal cross reference if you guys notice is is drug use up um does it seem like is it kind of ebb and flow I mean I remember when I was do you the boss was like you couldn't see the front you know from Franklin to the high school cameras on every bus I think cameras is vaping making it harder to catch these people are we worried about this fentanyl thing I mean there's like is is there I

139mean are you noticing any increase in this kind of problems or is it just kind of business as usual is normal huge problem is it oh we have good policies to like you have the tools you need to get after them the products are um and so they don't like tobacco or marijuana is easier to detect but it may be they come in pretty flavors and mints and fragrances that make it very difficult so they can't Vape it they they should we don't let them Vape anyways no matter what they're vaping do you no no can we do really challenging difficult because um you know at times you know it starts very young the Middle School and it's quick that's the thing about it very quick it's very quick no longer you know smoking at

140a pull it out and had to get the lighter and vaping is a very quick process yeah I noticed at Forest View when I was there working and every once in a while you'd catch an odor not very often but yeah all right thank you Angie thank you do we need a motion we need a motion about harassment RJ's making a motion all right Dr Heidemann thank you and a second 12 seconds director Brecken thank you we've got a motion and a second any further discussion if not we'll do a roll call vote yes [Music] yes thank you thank you thanks Angie all right so we've got a few informational updates uh first the Brainerd Public Schools Foundation I'll just offer a couple things on that today was the 4A Grant deadline for educators in

141the district we had a second deadline this year which is new from other years the scholarships the 140 000 scholarships for our seniors that are out there we had about 204 applicants for those and so uh they're taking time right now the Committees to work through those applications and and should have some information out to those that applied and will receive scholarships by April 6th and the scholarship recognition night will be May 3rd and if you're cleaning out your closet just again this year stack up your Warrior gear that that's nicely used and we're going to collect that again this year and do a sale of that so stay tuned for details on that coming up in April all right next we've got our business services Report with Marcy so in your board packet is

142the enrollment report we are down 102 students K through 12 from the beginning of the school year when I look at the last four years the average we're down 82 so we are up however when we look at the projections of beginning of the year to the end of the year we normally average around 97 percent so if we do 97 of the 6 000 we will end the year 5864 which is eight above our budget so it is trending a little bit higher but we will remain within budget if we Trend the same weight we have in the past I sent you data that shows so when we say up down you guys have that data I think we did it mid February we'll do it but you'll let the in out data so

143you can look at where our kids are coming in from and where they're going out to um and you're going to see we we very much are like the Suburban if you think of suburban districts we have a lot of movement that's occurring across from moving in from out of state moving out of state moving within the state um sometimes we think they're just going locally that's not necessarily the case for the largest number of our students so we'll try to keep updating that in out numbers for you do these numbers include online learning uh so you're talking Brainerd online yes okay cool thanks Marcy yeah um and then also in your packet is the financial report the only thing to note that community service fund compared to last year is up five percent again

144we look at pre-pandemic levels it's within two percent so we're we're tracking fine there and I just want to point out on there that fun 45 that is the opeb trust fund that Jill we were talking about that is the account that we monthly have expenses rolling through for health care and then we'll do a draw at the end of the year for the implicit rate or the implicit subsidy as well um and then just a real quick the the universal meals was brought up the assess session update um that did pass and then they have a proposal to change the compensatory formula so um the compensatory Revenue would stay the same for next year however after that it would be based on our direct certifications and um I'm working on trying to figure out

145what that number is so more to come so let me get this straight what you're seeing is is they pass the universal meals so we're going to feed more kids and they're not going to pay us any more money so they they will be reimbursing us rather than oh like they have been during covet exactly okay got it well at least we're not going backwards do they reimburse for kids that don't don't eat lunch if if we let's say some kids they bring their their meals from home because their mom and dad feel they're more nutritious we're going to get paid for that right no we have to we have to report to them how many kids are actually eating them correct cool Mercy uh Madam chair Director award Marcy wasn't uh 400 million dollars

146out of the budget um applied towards Universal meals 200 000 for uh uh 23 24 and 200 200 million not not a thousand 400 million 200 million each year of the biennium I don't know the exact number I just know that Universal meals passed so it is it is happening next year and his his Essence no but are you talking Governor walls's budget director Ward yes yes that's a that's kind of the carve out that they've put forth yes okay Dr Hahn is confirming that yes okay yep thanks thanks thank you thank you thank you all right and the superintendent's report Dr Hahn I think what's been fun about this board meeting and all the things that have come before the board it shows how complex the system really is when it comes to educating

147students so I get excited about meeting our Littles we talk about um we start working with some kids as early as when they're a day or two old so our little baby Warriors all the way to getting them through graduation day and that takes hundreds of uh dedicated staff and a community to do that for our students so that's what's been fun tonight so I'm really grateful for the expertise of the business manager and the food service and HR and buildings and grounds and all the facets that go into educating our kids so thank you um talking about career Pathways the one thing I want to highlight about that too so you know we've had the Bridges Academy which is allowed 11. we're expanding from 11 to 23 by going with the warrior Pathways so

148I think that's super exciting we talk about what are we doing to get kids College and Career ready last week that Friday before spring break our career day was that Thursday or Friday Friday um there are over 200 careers that are sophomores and juniors were exposed to and they were careers that were locally here and so I'm very grateful for the partnership in our community that came forth with President Harris and Matt Killian from our chamber took 250 volunteers to expose our kids and it was a pretty fun day to see and I think a lot of our kids didn't realize what's available right here so that exposure keeps happening um I'm very grateful and thankful to our local law enforcement it was super fun Saturday to stand on the corner of BHS and watch

149our Brainerd police and our fire department come through as they escorted our adaptive floor hockey team into town with our state championship so again that just it was really neat for our students to feel that and just the community that wraps their arms around that um our APAC committee that presented there's a lot of community involvement in that too we talked about our staff and our students but I'm grateful to the community members that step forward and then last but not least which is taking lots of time in our world is strategic planning um we've had 17 in-person listening sessions three virtual they're gonna do two more but they're going to focus on students and kind of support staff as they come forward the staff survey there was a survey that went out to all

150staff that closed the community survey is out right now it's on our website so there's a link so people who couldn't come to listening sessions uh the same questions are asked in the survey so that's on there that survey closes on Wednesday and then this coming Friday there's people who've been stepping forward to say yes I'm willing to put in more time and be part of those Community stakeholders partner Ed is gathering those names and their goal is uh the week of the 27th they'll be notifying committee members we've divided that committee out to be include community members business owners parents and we're looking all the way from Early Childhood to transition age we have our staff members involved students so if there's more people let's say we had 10 staff showed up or signed

151up to do it and we only need six partner Ed's going to randomly select and we'll put those those members forward so the week of the 27th those committee members will be notified and those committee meetings start happening on April 11th so we're in full swing so there's lots of data right now that they are sifting through from all the listening sessions great so good thank you yeah it's been great to see all the engagement from the community and within our schools too uh there's some dates there on future meetings the one that I would point out is the one on March 25th we have a congressional gold medal ceremony that I I just wanted to point out at 2PM at the gitches eBay and it's celebrating Army Lieutenant Colonel Hortense McKay so put that

152on your calendar among the other things and most of those Awards happen out in Washington DC so to have it happening right here in Brainerd Minnesota uh Lieutenant Colonel Hortense McKay is a Brainerd graduate so it's going to be pretty exciting to have that right uh to me it's a once in a lifetime opportunity so very exciting very cool all right to otherwise we'll entertain a motion to adjourn we've got a motion by director dondelinger a second by director Heideman seeing no discussion we'll do a roll call vote I guess so [Laughter] [Music] yes yes thank you meeting is adjourned