001All right. I would like to call the regular board meeting of the Rockford area school district to order. It is 6:30 in the Rockford boardroom. And we will start with the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. Madame clerk, would you please call the role? Beth >> here. here. >> Here, >> Mr. Johnson >> here. Morton >> here, >> Jamie here. You're all here. >> Excellent. Thank you so much for doing that. Uh, tonight's agenda had been provided for you previously. Dr. Idol Hoover, we are in good order for tonight's agenda. >> We are, chair. >> Thank you very much. With that, I would
002appreciate a motion to approve. >> Thank you, Miss Johnson. I would appreciate a second. >> I'll second. >> Thank you, >> Miss Hilstrom. >> Uh, there's a first and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by I. >> I opposed. Tonight's agenda is carried unanimously. Public comment item three. No public comment. That item is now closed. Consent agenda was there for your review as well. Um, any dis any needs for question? Very good. I appreciate a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda. >> Thank you, Mr. Shadine. There's a first and a second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Mr. Morgan. A first and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those signify by I. >> I opposed. Consent agenda carries unanimously. Superintendent report.
003Dr. Ryhoover. >> Thank you, Chair Gordy. Uh for schools and young families, September not only generally means a return to some cooler temperatures um although not this week uh but the excitement, optimism, and anticipation that only comes with a new school year. Our staff returned at the end of August and that was closely followed by the smiles and laughter that entered the hallways as our students arrived, meeting their teachers and seeing their friends as they embark on yet another year of learning. Um starting off with uh with reams, it's been a wonderful start to the school year. Uh, according to principal Nus, Rocket Ready days was a huge success. Students, families returned to a meet and greet with their new teacher, participated in individual reading testing, eye and ear health assessments, fall pictures, and bus
004safety training. Students in grades one through four met with principal Nus and all the specialists by grade level on the very first day of school. Students receive instructions on school expectations and practice the correct way to show those expectations in a variety of ways. Kindergarten worked with staff uh the second week of school. Principal Nus and counselor Katie Reynolds will meet with all classes for back to school uh kindness and rocket pride visits this week. Fast testing will take place September 16th and 17th. So the next couple of days, new staff will receive arts training in September with Darren Elias who trains new staff annually so they can utilize arts strategies in their classrooms. Staff and students will participate in homecoming activities and dress up days the week of September 22nd. And fourth grade students
005will participate in the annual kindness retreat with youth frontiers on October 10th. U principal Warzac will be here in a few moments to share a little bit about the middle school. U talking about our high school. Principal Manard shared that the link crew welcomed 119th graders on the very first day of school. They had an alternate schedule uh filled with team building and open Q&A about things about the high school uh to ease their worries and their transition. They were introduced to all the new staff and they ensured a solid start for that class of 2029. Students in grades 9 through 11 engaged in fast testing so they can establish their fall benchmarks. Uh data will be used to inform classroom interventions, instructional strategies and tools assistance in or outside the classroom, and much more.
006students also set their winter and spring goals. Uh, seven full diploma candidates began their senior of studies with the hopes of receiving an IB diploma at the end of high school. Six juniors began their DP journey this month, aiming to earn their IB diploma next year. 22 students in total are striving to complete their career pathway diploma with 11 of those being juniors and the other 11 being seniors. IB coordinator Jill Gordy and nth grade counselor Ellie Angstrom will meet with every ninth grade student by the end of December. This is the start of a long range plan of every student at Rockford High School to clear a career path. This career path along with elective credit options will be published in their academic planner allowing them to create their own comprehensive four-year course plan
007to best prepare them for a field of their own interest. A team of leaders restructured our career pathway program to uh align with both the IBCP program and the Minnesota career clusters. As a result, we have now outlined 21 pathways. That number, by the way, is huge. Um not just for a school our size, but for any school currently running under research for development for our students to have a wide variety of career options. In addition, students currently have the opportunity to earn or qualify for up to 48 college credits. Um, that's two years of college while they're still in the confines of our school district walls. The model entitled Launch Your Future is slated to be introduced later this year if financial stability allows for our students to continue to have access to these
008options. Operationally, we're staffed, including special education, which is the first time my tenure I'm able to say that. Um, part of our successful staffing this year is due to lower turnover, but I also like to express my thanks and appreciation to our principles, department leads, and our HR department for work in this area. By the way, the only place we do have one small issue, not issue, staffing situation that we're working on is a late resignation in our preschool program. Um, so Tiffany Reinhardt is doing a wonderful job filling in there. Um, but we're hoping we have that filled shortly. Uh, our facilities work went well this summer. I'm happy to share that the large projects we engage in are completed on time and within within the scope of our budget. On the fiscal side,
009as we do every year, we're working closely with Rockford Area Schools CFO Bridget Peterson to ensure compliance to the board approved budget. To date, we're trending as anticipated um which as you know indicates a deficit spend of our fund balance. Plans are to adjust as needed um after the results of the November levy election. We've also started planning for the next two school calendars as the 25 uh 2025 legislature provided the districts with the ability to potentially begin prior to Labor Day in both 2026 and 2027 school years. The district calendar committee will meeting on October 1st to discuss, plan, and provide the school board with recommendations for later this fall. Negotiations continue with our teacher bargaining group and we feel good about the process and plans to reach a settlement in the near future.
010Director McNeli will be providing a brief update on the status of these negotiations in a few moments. Instructionally, our teacher teams were very busy this summer which allowed them to hit the ground running as we entered workshop week. New instructional initiatives such as our literacy work, math and science review and core engagement strategies are well underway. um education as well in multilingual areas as well as ADSIS. Um I'm abundantly proud of all of these efforts as we continue to innovate and seek positive changes to enrich the educational experiences for all of our learners. Connected to our instructional work this fall is an opportunity for districts to share a variety of progress report indicators. This includes our annual Northstar report which will be shared later this evening as well as a comprehensive assessment and career readiness
011and achievement integration report which will be shared with our curriculum instruction and assessment committee and our board in November. Those are two reports that I've been working on um for your review later. Uh within the district fall events both in activities and athletics are going very well with our teams and clubs finding joy in competition and camaraderie and time with one another. Personally, I attended meetings with our friends and colleagues at Northwest Suburban, AMSD staff and MASCO and I participated with my MSEA colleagues on a professional development committee planning work of which I'm a part of. I also attended actually today the back to school legal conference by Kennedy and Graven, a refresher on all current legal statutes as well as information on some new laws passed during the most recent legislative session. I also
012had the opportunity to share various community groups the state of our district and I provided the presentation most recently to both um rocket the vote. I will be presenting to our local seniors and last week I visited with our Rockford Greenfield Chamber of Commerce and in what is always my most enjoyable part of my job. I spent times in our schools uh watching our teachers and staff do great things with kids. This included the wonderful opportunity to address the kids of our incoming fifth graders at the middle school. And that was yet another wonderful reminder of why we do what we do. The kids were great. They asked wonderful questions and I got to tell you, they really embody the characteristics we wish to see in our learners. I want to thank Principal Warzaka for
013the opportunity to visit with our fifth graders um on the first day of school. And that concludes the September superintendent report. >> Thank you so much. Any questions for Dr. Rid, thank you for representing our district in such good light and being there for us. Uh, moving on to our next item, we have our district rocket spotlight and we will call Melissa Joseph to welcome. >> Hello. Um, wow. I got to do this last time and here I am again. This is so exciting. All right. Um, so today I want to just read the nomination and then talk a little bit about our uh our winner of our rocket spotlight award. Um, it's Mr. Chris Larson. And the nomination is our maintenance and buildings and grounds department has gone through a number of personnel changes
014over the past several years. The department has done more with far less and they are a very lean department. Through these changes, Chris has not only continued to do his job, he has done so with little fanfare and a very strong work ethic. Even on the busiest days, Chris is always willing to take a call. Most of them for me, I would say. Um, always willing to take call and help with what's needed. Chris never complains, keeps everyone in the loop, and make sure the job gets done for the team. Whether Chris is fixing or replacing a broken part, mowing, plowing, or tending to the grounds, Chris is a true professional. Chris is never one to seek accolades, but rather he does his job dutifully each day with a smile on his face, an occasional
015sarcastic joke, and a determination to make a difference. Chris works well with his colleagues and is always willing to step up when needed. Rockford Area Schools is a better place because of Chris. So, and just from a personal note, um I've always enjoyed working with Chris. He's always, like I said, I I called him before I was in charge of buildings and grounds. Chris, I'd give him a call. Hey, I need this. I need that. He'd be right down. Same thing with uh Jamie at the community center. Uh just always willing to jump in and help. And now that I'm his direct supervisor, I I feel even more privileged and uh honored to be giving him such an amazing award. He definitely deserves it. So, congratulations, Chris. Thank you. >> He's a man of many
016words. >> I'll catch you in the hall. >> We can do one out. >> Okay. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> Appreciate it. >> Thank you, MJ. Uh moving on then to student achievement and growth. Uh Mr. Warzeka, welcome. First one. And just for the board's knowledge, he uh Mr. Weka's presentation is a drive link in the um announcement for the board report. >> All right, good evening. Um so, first and foremost, thank you for uh having me out. Uh it has been a fantastic start to the school year. Um, and we have a lot of momentum I'm excited to share with you today. Um, including the deportage meeting. I literally just came from upstairs uh that uh showed a lot of strong support from parents on our sixth grade portage
017uh field trip that you would have previously um approved. So, we're excited to bring another group up there. Um, and today really want to talk to you about updates about instruction safeties, student supports, and our SIP goals just to ground our work. Um although um um we will get into the specifics uh the general focus is student achievement and growth engagement and connectedness. Um, and I'd be remiss if I don't just acknowledge our staff have been has been been doing great work um at really stepping up in their own capacity as leaders which you'll see soon um and uh we're seeing just incredible momentum uh this year and I think it is attributed directly to the alignment across all of our goals. Um we don't have a student celebration to bring you. Um but I'm
018excited to um announce that today's student health today. This morning we announced our student council representatives. Um and we had 49 students uh who applied for student council leadership roles, which uh is brings me joy. Um and to see so many of them uh that were thinking about it and on the fence but decided not to. Um it just uh it is a privilege and an honor to um both serve them but also to develop their voice as leaders. Um speaking of um Built and Bolt have um done a lot of amazing work and I can't justify it with words. Um however their intentional action on um getting really clear on what we want in intentionality and then also working towards um teasing out what does that look like on supporting students to start the
019year has felt um at after the first day of um workshop week I tallied up and there was 19 total uh presenters or 19 total staff that were spoke um I don't know what we have for staff exactly but I think we're coming in about 35. So, the fact um that so many people are getting involved um really uh speaks volume to the leadership of our staff. Um and then just knowing really clear what we're doing. Um ADIS uh Amber B and uh Chris Noi have done amazing work at hitting the ground running to try to um deliver earlier, stronger support for students. We've moved fast up um to be able to then analyze. Um, one thing that I'm really proud of this work is they um really put in a CBM tool as a
020universal screener so we can start looking at fluency data which I'll show you in a little bit and then um we are mostly done with fast uh with a few retakes left to go um and then we're using that to finalize intervention rosters. One thing Built was pretty passionate about this year is making sure that we um provide intentional time um to our math and ELA teams about data. So, what that looks like and sounds like is we have our math and ELA teams who are going to be meeting after FAST uh for they'll have 30 minutes ahead of time to on their own to review the data come in uh with a solid understanding and then an hour of meeting time to be able to really land at um uh we're going to start
021with three targeted uh action steps of how do we move they need instructionally. Um, and we're talking about uh each learner. So, we're talking not just the lower level learners, but uh to make sure we're all showing growth. Um, so that those will be happening between now um and October 2nd um is the goal and then we will be taking that um and then checking in in the winter and spring. um safety day. It's important that you understand gen generally what it is and how it has differed. This is something we tried last year um with great success um and is a product of our bolt team, but basically we have a really disruptive day intentionally. Um we connect um and be able to um have them show interconnectedness between all of our drills and
022responses. Um and then also wanting to um make sure that we um are practicing all those things so students feel confident in their response um in the rare event that something tragic or um crisis situation would happen. Um and then we are in the process of then redoing that to students who are absent that day so that way everybody has um and then we'll do some things throughout the year. Um let's see. um four new or five new courses uh that we're excited to roll out with some elective redesign. Um college and career pathways in in eighth grade uh and then GPS planning personal success uh both kind of look uh through the lens of helping develop the skills uh for readiness both at the middle school and high school. um and then begin to
023explore um what does it look like? And it's our hope that we pair a lot of these experiences to both experience the magnet theme at the middle school, but then also prepare them uh to best um leverage the high school experience. So, Minnesota Outdoors is going to be um and environmental exploration is going to be taught by um Jessica Hanza, who um is a new hire to us um and is a rare find where she actually has taught up in um Deep Portage and that that place is near and dear to us. So, being able to make those things come to life on our site is going to be a huge um way we can screen our theme. Um and so again we're just u providing readiness and pathways um while also focusing on that
024STEM environment. Um three general goal areas instructional practices that includes our shift from um one through four at fifth and sixth grade. And then also um and then um also um when we talk about um A through F across the system fifth through 12th grade um we're talking about engagement continuum um and then data back student supports. So I'm just going to run through these really quick. Um, as you probably have heard, um, the engagement continuum is about, um, making sure we have the mechanisms of teaching what effective engagement is and then being able to use it as a tool for students to self-reflect, um, and for us to grow as a system in operationalizing uh, engagement um, because we know that that is the heart of uh, effective learning. And so, we're talking about
025that being explicitly taught and then students reflecting on that. Um and then um just to go back our 512 grading practices, it's about directly teaching that but then also teaching students the awareness of what that looks like. For example, 70% of our grade of the grade is summitative and 30% is formative. So being able to explain that um from fifth grade and then scaffold that uh to a high school readiness uh type of message is important. And then a whole lot of things we're doing around data back student support including um some data retreats. Um we're doing some intentional work on boost uh reflections, goal setting um reflecting on the results of boo of fast and then targeted systems of support um which include action plans for students um who need that um student connectedness.
026Our goal is between fall and spring uh to increase increase the percentage by at least five point five percentage points of uh the percent of students who feel connected to an adult in within the building. Um we also made a few tweaks to make sure that we can um pair that with existing data to um help that student feel more connected. and that'll come up uh within the next three weeks or so. Um and then our goal three is all about um achievement and growth. And so that's every student uh growing, but um as we finish up fast, uh we will define that with numbers and being able to use our PLC time and staff time to talk through that. Um this is hot off the press as of today um because we wrapped up
027our fast testing on Friday and with some retakes still happening yet today. So CDM, this is the new one for us as a universal screener. Um this measures students fluency, the grade and accuracy in which they read. um our this is our schoolwide data and I'm only going to be talking about schoolwide at the the grade level data just for transparency purposes for those who are curious. But um what this would tell us is we have a higher amount of students at some risk um when it comes to this measure um specifically around fluency um and uh work to be done um and I know access will be a part of that and some tier one literacy work as well. Um and then I again I will zoom through those grade levels. Um the reading
028test is obviously uh measuring comprehension and higher level reading skills included the um kind of the benchmarks here as well. Um but just to generalize where we're at right now with only a few retakes needed. Um generally speaking, every every category is a little bit larger as we go left to right. And it's our goal to be able to move the needle um and uh help everybody move uh to a space uh where they're on track and even helping those on tracks learners continue to grow in their learning. So no matter where where it is, this is again benchmark data that just happened last Tuesday through Friday. And now we're going to take that and really talk about uh what instructional strategies are we going to be using to move the needle. uh all the
029way over and then um math um very similar story in that regard as well. So um we have a little bit uh more of a divide between high and some risk. Um but that's a little bit of the where we are at um with the data for fast and again we'll finish the three takes and um keep this a main focus as we head into um pairing this with student engagement work and uh the work of instructional design. And last but not least, I'm going to close with you like I close with workshop week. Um so uh it's all about early sports, strong instruction and student connectedness. Um our alignment to SIP goals and our clear expectations throughout building and developing common expectations. Um and then making sure that everybody feels valued, challenged, and supported.
030There's a quote that sticks out to me uh and it talks about how um a stone cutter won't hit the hit the stone 100 times but on the 101st time it'll eventually split. And um this reminds me that it's important uh as we talk about how aligned we are that we're hitting in the same spot every single time whether we're in a staff meeting or a PLC um or uh for data retreats we're focused hyperfocused on our goal and making certain that we are doing uh really good work for kids. So with that any questions? >> Dr. not not a question but but just a word of appreciation. You know, what's happening at the middle school mirrors what's happening at our elementary and high school right now. Um you heard Principal Wara talk about alignment
031and goal setting and in particular the use of data to drill down to the individual student. Um those are things that are on our instructional roadmap this year and we are really looking at those things closely um closer than I think we've ever looked at them before. Um I met with our principles last week. We went through data you know previous data to say we're going to be laser focused on this. One thing I think you've seen the evolution over time uh has been the focus on learning. And I think sometimes we can start talking about all these other things, whether it's fiscal situations or other operational things, but we have a a group of leaders here at every site um led by our principles um talking about student achievement and you're going to see
032some more of that tonight. Um we are, it took us a while to really build that foundation, that alignment, those structures. we have them in place. Um, and we're moving. And, um, I'm really proud of the staff. I'm proud of the leadership we're seeing at our buildings, um, that we are, um, we're hitting this up. And by the way, it's not easy. It's the hardest work we'll do. Um, because we can't control how kids come to us, um, what their stories are because some kids come to us way off the charts, successful academically, and others come to us, um, and we're their last best chance. what what our job is to do is take every one of those scholars and move the needle for them. And that's what we're doing. And we're doing it one
033kid at a time. And that's the importance of of the use of data and how we're going about this work. So, thank you for um I guess kicking us off this year um with our first school report. Um and I know we're going to see a lot more of that um throughout the year. So, thank you, >> Miss Pa. >> All right. Hang tight. All right. So slide eight. First I want to start out that you mentioned linking the data to action steps and I 100% appreciate that. So that I really am happy to hear. When I'm looking at slide eight and you have your SIP goals, I'm seeing goals, but I'm not seeing any kind of data that helps me know what you want your goal to be. So even like this is where
034we are. So that would be really helpful because it's hard for me to know where you're moving when I don't I don't know what the goal is like student connectedness. >> Tell me more. >> Yep. So the the the student connectedness goal specifically is around um our uh student questionnaire we give on on two students usually in the fall and the spring. Essentially, that's the plus 5%. So, we didn't want to baseline, nor did we want to um look at last year's data, but it's really talking about how do students feel connected to staff. And so, between spring and fall or fall and spring, we want that number to grow at least 5%. And we know that based on um what we saw in the data last year that that's an important that we feel
035like that is one of the most important question that we can control uh to help make sure that they feel connected to someone on staff and it doesn't need to be everybody. Um so like let's say they come in the fall in two weeks and say 70% answer that question. it be 75% and and perhaps I've overgeneralized a lot of this. I can't include this or update you with specific language. Um there's a multi-page s with action steps associated with this. I'm just trying to generalize but I would love questions >> that would be helpful because like number one as I look through the different slides there's a lot there and so just I want to tease it out a little bit. So I'm going to look at slide nine now. As we think about
036instructional practice, again I don't see like how is engagement measured, what is the goal? Because again, I don't see anything here to show like this is where we're starting. So I can have the metrics to determine where we're at. >> Sure. And I can share uh specific SIP goals um if that's helpful. But uh so you're talking about goal >> number one >> one sorry there's >> there's three goals within goal number one. Yes. So uh there's one on instructional design there's one on engagement and there's one on data back uh student support. So um I can kind of walk through just generally um what that looks like. Um, >> well, and I guess what I really am wanting when when we see these is what is the metrics? What are we looking at? Because
037I see words and I see great things, but I'm not seeing a smart goal. Yeah. >> Um, I'll jump in. So, we shared a little bit about this at the back to school workshop week. there's a continuum um of engagement and so through teacher survey student survey um both teachers of students students self-s surveyed um where they land on the engagement continuum. So we're measuring that and we have a document that's being used um districtwide that was developed um this summer. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So let me see here. I think it's on nine. So the teachers are going to meet with teacher the students to review their fast goals. Fantastic. When they do that, do they engage a student on setting an instructional pathway also or is it just I'm going to go
038from a 200 to 210 and I don't know fast numbers >> instructional pathway just so >> I'm at a whatever fast is telling me for a C whatever it's math or reading >> and I want to go to here this is what I'm going to learn along the way so there are students engaged with that instructional pathway so it's not just a random number of a score Uh yes and no. Um what we in terms of the pathway um it's not directly with that document. There's a lot of understanding gap we need to lift with um especially with some of our kids having not never experienced that before. We need to explain what that fast score is. Um where we accomplish the majority of the pathway is doing a uh it's called a um academic
039check-in. Um so there's a five six academic check-in that is a paper copy that exists in boost um that students will do routinely. Um looks something like this. Um and then there's a digital copy in symphonies because they have their one to one Chromebook. And so in terms of pathway, that would be where we kind of keep the finger on the pulse and help them um that's where it's how many and it's pretty basic of how many um missing assignments, how many targets, what's your goal for this quarter, what do you need to do to meet that goal, that's where we provide that mechanism. Um I don't know if that answers your question, but that does it just is that would happen in our boost class. Um, and it's kind of a strategy with that.
040>> No, that's great. Thank you. So, moving down to number 10. So, goal two and you already answered that question for me, so I don't have that question. As far as the Q comp the fast testing, are we going to see the or is this what we have here is a fast the A rating? We have the A rating in mass. So, have you done testing? >> Yeah, Friday you said it's completely. So the our initial phase was Friday. So the essentially Friday marked the last day of math. So second day of math we still have retake work to do. Typically what happens is we partner um and come up with a goal based on our our um basically our assessments at that point and we do Mr. Nef and Kathy as well. >> I
041think it's great that you're already almost done looking at the CBMR for reading. I would find it helpful if you could also and I don't know if Bass gives you this the percentage besides the numbers because the percentages help me understand the data a little bit more if that's at all possible. >> Yep. And we have the percentage. I think the with every grade I think we have some um possibility of students who need to finish. So um it's important to me that we have at least a baseline understanding of it. Um but um we can absolutely share additional information >> and when especially for fluency they look at the rate and the accuracy does fast allow you to break those metrics up so you can see that because accuracy is actually more important than
042rate. >> Uh I'm uncertain on that one. Uh CBM is I'm not the expert in that one. um camper PD uh has has been doing the leg work on that with the help of Christian making sure that we first of all have a universal screener and they released that second date um which is awesome so I'm I'm not familiar and reporting >> okay just a question because it is really important to look at that >> okay So, >> and so just really thinking about talking about I I heard you say you want to move the needle and close the gap, which is exactly what we want to do, but I just need the metrics a little bit more so that we know this is where you are. So, where do you want to be? Because
043we want to be very rigorous, especially our students that are in that high risk and some risk, they have to do more than a year's worth of growth. >> Yes. Yep. and and that's part of that will be done uh as action steps uh with our data retreats uh throughout but the vast majority of a lot of this work um is combination so rather rather than staff meeting a separate entity PLC it is as we meet with built team is one entity it is the time it's that NPD so we're trying to accomplish the same exact things. Um we're just talking about what makes the most sense in what time increments to be able to do that. So um I can share specific um what uh set goals as well. Um traditionally we also have
044a process where we um review that with uh Dr. Ryver and um everybody that uh needs to see them. So um and again our first goal is really about um that instructional aligning instructional grading practices uh specifically with the five six change. Um the second we talked about the student engagement component the data back student support is really talking about uh the outcomes based on the fast scores um and then the completion of student action or achievement action plans. Um and then um the connectedness, we talked about the plus 5% uh to staff and then the last one, the QC comp um is all about um first of all looking at where they're at in fall and then identifying our exact goal. So >> I appreciate all of this. I want you to know that
045this is wonderful. I just wanted a little bit more detail. So thank you very much for your time. >> Any other questions? >> And I guess I'm just lazy. the QC count goals. We'll we'll talk about the amount of growth that you're expecting, right? I mean, I would if I can go to the QC count goal and find that. Okay, >> cool. And that's inside of there. U be interested to find out your summer slide, right? Compared your kids to kids to see how they were and how they came in. >> So, be cool. Just just a right. So, cool. Any other questions? Yes. >> I just have a comment of um appreciation also. I've been able to be in the middle school fairly often and uh your SIF goal number two. I don't know
046if it's a concerted effort already this year, but it it feels like one and I've seen the the student connectedness really seems to shine through. So, thank you for the feedback >> for the goal or for the work on the goal. It seems like we're already hard at it. So, >> yeah, Miss >> on the same note there at our uh Minnesota School Board Association conference back in January, they had a speaker, Hish Brewer. >> Yep. Um, and that's like his number one is student connectedness. That's number one. And he came into districts, he has been in districts that are really struggle, right? Really, really struggle. The kids that are um don't have any connectedness outside of school and because of making that such a priority, those kids are very successful academically as well. So
047to me that is a huge goal and personally I would love to not even say 5% but to say every kid has >> yes >> someone that they are connected to and I think that that is super important that every one of our kids walking through the door have somebody in this building that they can connect with within the district that they can connect with. So that's my two cents on that. >> Dr. Hubber, >> thank you. Um thank you for saying that and you know this information while it's not you know shared with the masses the um the appropriate parties are seeing which students are not connected and you know they're they're very subtle at um approaching the students. They don't say hey Mary I hear you're not connected. It's it's it's there's ways
048to to have that conversation and to ensure that all of our students are connected. So I love Beth's question. you know, how do you know? Um, did the same thing last year, but by the way, this this is a goal at all three levels and so they're all doing the student connectedness work. It looks a little different at the elementary school with the the savers work, but it's generally the same thing. Um, is how are we making sure all of our kids are connected uh because, you know, school can be a very lonely place if you don't have at least one person, and that includes at least one adult um that genuinely cares about you, going to wrap their arms around you, take care of you. Um, and we all need credits. Um, you don't
049need a lot, but you need some good ones. And so, how can we make sure that kids are connected, whether it's through activities or through their regular coursework, but I couldn't agree more. When kids are connected, they're going to be successful. Um, and so, um, thank you both, all all three of you for really pointing that out because it is a concerted effort districtwide. Um, and it's something we're going to continue to work on, um, as we go. >> So, I'm just going to throw out this book is an audio book. great to listen to. >> It's it's really good. Would highly recommend for staff to listen to it because it's it's powerful and shows just how important student connectedness is. So one thing to one thing to end on or land on um when
050it comes to student connectedness when from the time post survey um we have a intentional string of events in which we are um taking a look at our survey results surfacing which students don't feel connected but it comes at a time where we will be talking about student engagement in PLC's on the 2nd staff meeting on the 7th um and then we'll have our um parent teacher conferences on the 14th and we have PD on the 15th to be able to really talk about that achievement growth student engagement component. Um and specifically we made a decision to shorten our open house by two hours so we can have a flexible two-hour parent conferences so we can target those kids and specifically that um the nuances of that will be determined um and we can use
051the connect this data in real time as we determine who needs those conferences as we build connection and ultimately >> thank you for thank you for sharing that additional step >> because I think that because middle school can be very lonely. I don't know anyone in this room that would say yay I want to go back to middle school. >> So thank you for what you're doing. Maybe there you go. Let's get back on agenda. So, I'm going to cut cut this close. Thank you, Mr. Warzeka, for your time. And you have a free pass now for a couple months. Just saying, unless we need Mr. Manard needs help or something. So, we'll move on to the Northstar Assessment. Dr. Ry Hoover, >> thank you, Chery. I think we're queued up here. Um, this is
052something that we do annually. It started last year. Um, it's an accountability report for the system that needs to be shared out publicly starting with the board. And, um, I'll just kind of get right into it. Starts with our district profile. This is what our, um, demographics look like in real time as I I want to say this is last year. So, this is all an autopsy of last year's information. So, you'll notice that we are threequarters white, Caucasian, and then we are our next highest demographic is is Hispanic at 12%. and you could see the other percentages along the way. So that's part of this particular report. Again, this is information coming from last year. Um these are our special education numbers uh from last school year. So we're right around 17% special education.
053Uh this information is around educational benefits or what has generally been considered green reduced lunch which of course it's free for all but that is still used. So uh right around one in three of our students um as of last year's uh demographics were in need of educational benefits. This number is pretty high. Um 8% of our kids are multilingual learners. um which generally is telling us that you know almost one in 10 English is not their first language and so that that's pretty significant. Um as we kick off into this report um what is the northstar report? Um again it's a framework you can read some of that but it's an accountability support and structure provided by MDE. um they use the Polaris as the north star um and that's kind of their their
054guiding principle around this as we strive towards excellence and equity as defined by the state. Um it looks at these five different components academic achievement progress towards English language proficiency academic um I'm sorry academic achievement academic progress graduation rates and consistent attendance. These are the indicators that are looked at uh via this particular report. And it's an accountability system under, if you think about what was titled under, I guess it was GW way back when, uh, No Child Left Behind or ESSA as it's um, more formerly referred to, um, uses this to determine it. And this is solely based on the MCAs or the MTAS, which is the version that is provided with some of our special education students. Um, I will share again as you all know that MCAs are a snapshot in time.
055one test given um generally in the month of April and um the the tests themselves are really the only public facing um accountability measure that we have which I will say as a precursor disclaimer is a little bit unfortunate. Uh the MCA scores do not matter to our students whatsoever. Um and that's something we've been trying to change for quite some time. Um but we have had little success um at the legislature. So want to share a little bit about this with you. So these are our our our numbers provided by um most recent numbers that came out around the state fair time. Um the state averages there you'll see for math and reading science they have a brand new baseline so that information is not readily available. It won't be until that baseline is
056established. Um we have worked on our readact work at the elementary school as you know brand new curriculum um a lot of training around that. Um literacy is a significant focus for us this year as it um has been for the last couple of years. Um but we're really starting to look at math and reading and we have seen a uptake an uptake in both math and reading proficiency at the elementary school um with last year and we are looking at math curriculum and reviewing our instructional processes there as well. So if you look across you will see that um you know our math and reading scores um are are listed there. You'll see our reading score um statewide is above the state average by about uh six percentage points while our math score um
057is is lower than the state average. Sorry, our mask I looked at the wrong one there. Our reading score is about uh one and a half% above the state average and our reading our math score is is lower. Um so that's why this will continue to be a focus uh throughout our our next couple of years um as we strive to improve in all of these areas. Again, I'll mention that um we do have things such as opt outs on this um that generally does have some impact, but we did have 322 kids um across the the district take the assessment in math and 432 took that assessment in reading around uh progress towards English language proficiency. And above in the white box is simply the kind of the definition or the rationale for that.
058Um I wanted to show you this because I think this is important. Um if you look at the scores um statewide versus the scores um here in our own system particularly at the elementary level um statewide um proficiency as it's defined around English language proficiency of our multil- language learners. Um the average statewide um the progress is at 46. The um this is again at our elementary school. Our progress um is at I'm sorry roughly um I mean we had 93 students. So we're above the average there on that particular benchmark. And if you look to the right um the language the work at our elementary school is even more significant where we saw a 78.6% 6% uptick at the elementary level. So, um, districtwide, we are above the state average in educating our multi-ingual
059learners. At the elementary school, it's significantly higher. So, you can see that 78.6 versus, I'm sorry, statewide is 46.2. So, we do have a significant number of um non-English-speaking students in our system. Um and I think we are seeing some huge strides at the elementary level in educating those kids around the area. Again, more academic progress information here. This is just the standards in which they use this is really hard to understand but there's a mathematical formula that goes into this um a matrix if you will for every kid who um has um who was exceeded who then doesn't meet or partially meets they'll get a zero score if they're meeting the standards. That's how their scores work. Um so you'll see that students who have exceeded the standards who continue to exceed score at
060a smaller rate. Those who were not meeting the standards who then exceed the standards are given priority points. Um this is still a work in progress and I don't have the data to say where we are exactly but I wanted to show the matrix that the state is looking to implement. >> I have a question. Does FAST have a linking study that predicts like if a student is here on fast this is what it does their predicted? Okay. They're all linked to the standards >> because that linking study would be like I'm sure it's public knowledge. >> Yeah, just like NWA has in the past. There's a linking study there. There's also a linking study to college entrance exams as well. >> And so, um, we're seeing all of that stuff. And one of the
061things you'll notice, um, and you have already noticed is our use of data. And this is a significant part. It's part of our instruction as well this year. So, we're continue to do work in that area. Looking at graduation rates. Again, this is for school year uh you know, the previous school year. So, this is not information from this current graduating class, but the prior year's graduating class. Um the statewide graduation rate is 84.2%. Our graduation rate this last year uh went up from 90% 90.4% to 94.5. you will see an even higher number than this when I do this report next year because I believe we hit 100%. Um, and that is something to be said and I I use the only caveat I'll say is we have kids who are entering a transition
062program. Um, they're they withhold their diploma. I think some of you are familiar with that. Um, they still graduated but they're withholding it so they continue to get educational services through age 22 now I believe it is. >> Does that count against us for the graduation rate or is it just postponed? It is it used to count against it's now postponed but if someone were to say well that kid didn't graduate the answer is yes they did but we didn't give them their diploma >> right >> it used to count against us as >> which is unfortunate because it shouldn't count >> correct and especially in a system our size when the end size is so small so if you have let's just to use the word the number 100 if one kid doesn't do
063it >> well >> or five kids don't or a special ed program it looks like we didn't do our work with those kids >> and that would be a disclaimer that I would want to know because I don't feel that counts against >> Dr. Isn't it also true that if a kid moves from our district and they don't have a record of them enrolling into another district, that's considered a dropout against us. >> Correct. If we can't track them and find out where they >> may have, but they just moved. >> Yeah. >> But they still count as a dropout. >> That's information I would want to know because I think we are close to 100%. >> I'm super proud of this work. I don't know. I think the folks that were at the high
064school, I know Mr. Ard is obviously here, but um what occurred last year at the high school um and I talked about it a little bit. Um it is absolutely worth sharing again. They we had far less students I know Gordy presented this last far less students in credit recovery this summer because the high school was so proactive in making sure they did not need credit recovery. And that work started last year around this time. >> Um that's caring about kids. It's caring about each individual kid. And we talk about that connectedness and individualized education. Um you've seen that um that tracking document that they've used where every teacher is writing something about a kid. What do they know about them? How can we support them? Um that's a big part of this. So, while
065I'm proud of being 10 points above the average, you know, from the previous year, I'm even more proud of the work that happened this this this year with with our kids graduating. So, a lot of kudos to the high school attendance. You might have heard this is a pretty significant initiative at the statewide level, and it it is. Um, you'll see that um consistent attendance is essentially um you're attending 90% of the school days, which for some of us doesn't sound like that's that hard. Um, let me tell you, it's become more and more challenging postco for kids to get to school. Um, I'll share some data with you here. This is our data. We are exactly spot on with the statewide average for consistent attendance as it's defined. >> couple interesting things that we've
066noticed. Um, we are slightly below at the elementary school and I've had some conversations with the elementary school about this. Um I was a little surprised to see our elementary a little bit lower. Um there's a little different dynamic I think there and we're looking to work on that this year. But I want to show you this. Um this is our middle school. Um we went up over 5% in attendance at the middle school. Um that was strong and highly intentional work that took place there. And our high school um attendance rate also went up. By the way, this number was in the 60s last year. high 60% for the for the high school and a lot of work at the high school took place to ensure our kids were were in school and also
067partnership with um um with the counties um around this because obviously kids do better when they're present and so um a lot of work is going on in this area here >> ask a quick question about that um >> what counts as an absent is it a full day a half day what's >> I believe it's class periods Okay. >> So, um they they use the class period. So, you know, if there's six periods of day, they're gone. Um it's a percentage of that day. >> Okay. >> But what I wanted to say is this is a a celebration for us. Between the secondary schools were increased by um by 3%. So, that that's something to be very proud of. That that's generally been the issue with attendance is the secondary level. Again, I always
068use a disclaimer as there's always more uh to the story. Uh this I I can't stress this enough and I talked about this in our work session. This is just last year, this last school year. Um and we had 143 students, and you'll say, "Well, we don't have that many graduating." That's correct. But we have 143 students, some are duplicates, enrolled in more than one class. Um, last year without leaving our school hallways, those students, those 143 students earned 441 college credits. It cost their families 0. Multiplying that by the number of costs per credit, that's um almost a quarter million dollars. That's a big deal. Um, we continue to see our students thriving when they leave us from a post-secary standpoint and we're incredibly proud of that. Um, this was our fresh off the
069presses, by the way. Um, our composite ACT for our 2024 um, graduates. Um, 22.4 was their composite versus the statewide average of 20.5. nationally that number is at 19 point something and so we're proud of that. Again, not every one of our students takes the ACT, but those that are taking the ACT are scoring significantly above the state average in the ACT. Give some more money to correct. That's correct. Um the other part here that's worth looking at is in our 2023 data, which is the most recent data v uh via the sleds data, which is the post-secary institution data. 68% of our graduates are enrolled in a two or four-year college university as compared to 62% statewide. Well, why is that? Well, they have a springboard already. So, they have a significant number of
070credits already accumulated. So, going on and and and trudging forward is is also significant. What we don't have yet is the data around our 2024 kids. How many of those kids the next data that they'll come out with, how many of those kids have attained at least one year of college credit after 16 months being out? Again, we blow that out of the water from a statewide perspective. So, when I say there's more to the story, um, do we want our kids to perform better on whatever that day is in May on the MCAs? Yep. And we're working towards it. We're not running from it. We're not hiding. That's our data. We got work to do. But what matters even more is what happens when our kids leave us. Are they finding success in either
071academia or in a a high-skilled, highpaying job? and they are um we always will have work to do. We will never tread water. We will never sit on our laurels. We're going to keep pushing forward and working to um increase our um our skills both on assessments and our ability to springware our kids into u postsecary work. Um some things that have been implemented over the last couple years, instructional cabinet, which is a leadership group uh districtwide that gets together to chart our course annually for our roadmap. The work we're going to do, putting in some things that Beth talked about that we'll describe more in detail at future board meetings with how are we drilling down to those things because we really are our work that's happening at our building instructional leadership teams. I
072shared information um at our back to school presentation of how many of our um staff members are involved in leadership in our buildings. It's it's incredible um what we have going on now from a teacher leadership standpoint that's also drilled down into the PLC work at the grade level andor department course level and this year something that is coming um because what we've been hearing um consistently is uh let's not let one score on one test define us but let's define what it means to be a graduate of Rockberry area schools. So on our district operational plan or our adopt that the board approved last uh spring. We are going to be constructing via our stakeholders, be it community members, faculty members, parents, and students what the profile of a graduate looks like for Rockford
073area schools and that is something we're um we're looking to unveil um through the process of this school year. Any questions on the Northstar report? >> Any board questions? No. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Rodu. A very good presentation. And I'm just going to make mention that while this is a public meeting, this is a meeting for the board, public comment did have an opportunity at the beginning of the session. So, if there is any questions or conversations that are needing to be had, we can have that conversation after with the superintendent or a board member. So we will then continue to move on to number 6C access presentation I believe. Correct Dr. >> Thank you chair Gordy. So as you know I wear a couple hats in the district one being superintendent the other one
074um partnering with our our leaders teacher leaders within our system around um instruction. So our learning innovation department I I uh work to lead the oversight of that and partnering with our uh folks within our system. So I'm going to share another report here today which is our alternative delivery system and intervention services otherwise known as ADSIS and this board knows a lot about ASIS. Um it's been a part of our system for quite some time and we've talked about interventions, extensions, enrichment for our kids. We have really doubled down in the areas of ADSIS and it's something we really needed to do. And so I'm going to walk you through a few slides here um that were really constructed by Jennifer Sprag who's one of our teacher leaders um and she's unable to be
075here tonight. U talk about what's going on this current school year. Um we have some new members to our team. Um Kristen Nby is taking over as the full-time ADS math person at the middle school and Donson is doing the same thing with math at the elementary. We did not have these positions previous. Um, as you can see, we need some work in math, and we now have some dedicated individuals to help work in the areas um that we need the most work. These are our ADS teams uh districtwide. Um, it's an all-star cast. You probably recognize some of these names. Again, I mentioned before, we have our building instructional leadership team. We have our building operational leadership team. We have our instructional cabinet. And this is an entirely different group of instructional leaders around
076ADSIS. Uh we have three principles who are the primary point people for all of these things. So Miss Dus is working on that in reading, Mr. Marzeka in math and Mr. Manard in the area of behavior. And when I say behavior, that's more student services, not a student is in trouble um so to speak. It's how can we best support around student connectedness and things of that nature. So these are our folks at the various levels that are engaged in these processes and we're super proud of that. Another thing you're going to see at the DOP again we talk about alignment and connections and we're also fortifying our MTSS work of which ADSIS is a significant player in that. Um so what is ADS? There are three areas of ADSIS intervention. Again I mentioned them
077reading, math and behavior support. Um, and we have funding for all of these things through the 2026 2027 school year. We will not need to submit another application until February of 2027. That is a big lift. Um, we worked together to put together the ads u application. Um, this year we got it in early. Uh, we are one of the first districts to get it in. So, MD likes us. Um, I'm very proud to say that everything we asked for we got. Um, and that's a big deal and I believe it's on one of these slides, but if it's not, um, I am going to use this number because I think it sticks in my head and and Bridget might have a more accurate account, but I believe 56% of the costs of ADS come
078from the state on a reimbursement basis in a rears. So, um, we are paying for I'll say only, it's still a significant amount of money, 44% of the ADS staff and times they're using during this intervention time. So, it's a pretty good bang for our buck and so we're really proud of that and the people we have engaged in this process are doing great work. I'm going to go through these kind of fastest for time consideration tonight. Um, again, multi-tiered systems of supports. Um, it's a significant component of this. We have interventions in this um primarily around tier 2 intervention but sometimes can also do uh tier three support for our most at risk populations. Again, please stop if I'm going too fast. I just want to uh save us some time here tonight. I
079just want to highlight what's there in I guess that's a light red. The goal of ADSIS statewide is to reduce number of unnecessary special ed referrals. You'll see in a lot of districts students struggling in XYZ just put them in special ed. By the way, oftentimes once you're in special ed, it's it's uh very difficult to get out and we want to make sure that we're doing our best to provide interventions on the front end um so that our kids are getting the supports they need without having to go down the IEP route. Again, how is it funded? There's that number here. It's a two-year cycle. Um 56% and I did have that number correct are reimbursed via MDE. Again, that is only the time they're participating in ADS work. Um, so I wanted to
080make sure that I shared that. And then at the completion of the school year, actually tracked along the whole way, our interventions have to supply data to demonstrate the effectiveness of the program. So it's not like here you go, Rockford Area Schools, we're going to give you a bunch of money. Um, good luck to you. Thanks. No, we need to report how our kids are performing. We need to report what we're doing with them and the time that we're spending with them. So there's a huge accountability component to our work in ASIS. Here's how they qualify. Again, you utilizing significant components of data. I'll let you read through that here. It's most of the data that you can probably assume that we do use. I know you have this in your board packet. If you
081have any questions there, you can feel free to let me know. How are they delivered? It does vary at times, but we have win at the elementary school. We have boost and we have rocket block and we have a whole bunch of other places where we're providing these things. Um, we have courses that are designed around this now, individual and small group uh pullouts for outside and direct instruction. So, a variety of ways we're implementing this uh around our district and our different sites. And then for the behavior, the counselors are the point people uh for that work. Again, these services do not take place during general ed time because that isn't allowable. Curriculum and approaches for our interventions. Uh you can see we've used our or Gillingham model in the in the past. Um
082and those are the other things that we're using. So, and you can get back to me on this for RAND that is a lot of states require that in legislation, but it's not generally used for instruction. It's just a potential indicator for dyslexia. >> So, it's not because I just want to check on that that it's not used for >> you are accurate. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. Um this is why that's what's good about having an expert in the reading area on your school. Um and then with the math interventions, um you'll see that they're using do the math at the elementary school. That's been a significant component at both the middle and the high school work. Um, which by the way, and I I want to say this somewhat quietly, many
083districts did not get approved for in their access plan, but we did. And so, um, some reimbursement for our time spent on on a pretty significant deal. and our kids are using that a lot and our staff using it to really see what strands our students are um finding I'll call them opportunities for growth um in in in both math and reading. Um so we're able to target and identify those areas um on a regular basis. Here's how a student might exit ADS. And by the way, that's always a goal. Um, teach them up and allow them to move um out of the program. Um, we would eventually like to be at the point where we put our access teachers out of work in this area and put them in work somewhere else. Um, but
084right now we are have the need and we're utilizing it in that way. >> Do you know if we have a reading core tutor? >> We do. We do because you know they half the state lost their funding for them. So we're lucky that's pretty good. >> Um again the partnership between the ads and the classroom teachers. These are ways in which we're doing that and you'll see that you see fast come up a lot. We really really care about growth and that's something we're focusing on this year. Last year I'll be quite candid. we met our our QC comp goal with respect to our kids um going from the low risk to the um uh to the minimal risk or exceeding. We also did see kids go backwards and that is something that um
085we're looking to pretty much put a stop to this year utilizing data and conversations with our our teachers and our interventionists. A lot of times people will say what in the world is ADS? This isn't new, but it's on our website. If anybody has any questions about what Access is and what it isn't, please go to our website. It'll answer a lot of questions. Our parents utilize this frequently. Um so you can find that um there. And I'm very appreciative of our staff who put time together to put this um a web web page together. >> Thank you. Are there any questions with respect to ads? >> Miss Hro, >> I have a couple questions. Um, how how do we decide how many assets kids need? Because I mean, looking at the MCA scores and
086some of our low or high risk and low risk, um, could people be graduated out of access when they still need help because of lack of space? Um, >> lack of intervention. >> Yeah, >> to be honest, we had that the last couple of years and then we didn't have we had we had teachers um, yes, the answer was yes. I think it's going to be a lot less of that going forward because we had teachers who had their, you know, had they were maybe a.5 ads person. Um, and so they were teaching their classes. Well, a kid's access the ability to access ads service might have been while that teacher was teaching. We couldn't get to them. And so now, uh, we've created full-time positions for access so that that teacher has the ability
087to get to kids all day long now. And so we really shouldn't see that very much at all. >> Okay. um because we don't want to see our kids falling through the cracks and to be honest they work. >> Okay. Um and then my other question uh was behavioral access teachers. Um I remember when COVID was going on, we used some to get some extra counselors and we were able to keep them then through the access. It would be really nice to see some of that behavioral data and see, you know, kind of the how it's >> how it's working, I guess. >> Yeah, that's that's great point. >> And we could definitely >> Thank you, M. Because there was quite a bit of conversation about >> what's the data to support the need for
088this in the district and there really wasn't much. >> Yeah, I remember hearing about that on my way in. Um the great part is um we do have that data and I can absolutely get it um because we keep it. We have to for our reporting purposes. Um and again I I know you all know this but I'll say it again. It isn't when we say adds behavior. It isn't trip to the principal's office. Most of the time it's >> social emotional support for kids. And I I really um I hope we don't go down the road of having to do anything with budget cuts where we have to look at at at our counselors because the work that they're doing around that whole social emotional component with our kids is significant. And um the
089beautiful part about ADS is they're all 1.0 ADS. So 56% of their salary is reimburseable to us when they're doing ADSIS work. Um, and they're not always doing it, but the time they are, it it's it's wonderful for us because, you know, I'll say it as honestly as I can, we're getting our counselors on the cheap. >> Another way we're trying to, you know, find ways to support kids and and make ends meet at the same time. >> Great question. >> Any other questions for Dr. Ed Hoover? I was going to make a quip about the need for behavior help, and you identified the administrator that needed it, but he left. >> We know, right? >> He knows. >> I know, right? Excellent. Thank you. And then we'll close that out and we'll continue to
090move on to stewardship of resources with Mr. Jeff Kenitz. Thank you. >> Welcome. >> Good evening. As usual, I'm going to go as quick as I can. If you have any questions, feel free to just interrupt and and we can move on. All right. So tonight as usual I'm going to talk about safety and learning classroom learning uh essential support services inter agency highlights and review. So the first part is just kind of give you an update on safety and security items. Uh we're currently working on updating our N 911 uh rosters. Uh as you know last year we put in a new phone system. Uh currently our 911 is by the building. So someone calls 911, they show up at the front door and then they ask where is it? And hopefully by MEA
091break, uh we'll have that by classroom. So we've installed what's called DID numbers, direct inward dial numbers to each phone in each classroom. So if somebody in a classroom calls 911 that the ID number will show up and we will have prepositioned that this is classroom five at the elementary. So that'll that'll be going into effect uh hopefully the next month. Uh geo fencing and the emergency integration project. Uh last year we tabled that I'm still waiting. Hopefully the levy will pass and then we can move forward with that. uh phones. Uh recently I was able to through some friends and connections at Shisada Lakes School District. They had to replace their phone system like we did. Uh they used to be my towel and they had a little newer system than us and they
092chose a different vendor altogether. So I was able to get 154 phones from them that are compatible with our system. Uh, and depending on how you look at it, it saves us anywhere from 40 to 50 $4,000 to $50,000. I'm guessing it's closer to the $20,000 range with the phones that we've been purchasing. So hopefully around Christmas when the dust settles, uh, we'll be able to start going door to door and throwing away. We have quite a few phones that they just don't light up anymore. So we have a lot of phones that need replacing. uh FCC and all conversion. This was something again mandated by the FCC over the last few years. Uh this summer before school started, we changed out our fax machines. Our fire panels, our elevators, and our alarm systems are
093now digital. So they all go through an IP address instead of the oldfashioned phone line. So currently when I looked at the phone bills this morning, uh the next step is now to start shutting those old lines down and that should uh save the last bill is a thousand just over $1,000 a month. So I'm hoping that that will save us $12,000 a year annually. >> Before you move on, just a quick question and it might be the next object in there. Um I should probably look forward. Um nope, it's not. So part of the levy is 911 objects, right? It looks like the first part is completed, right? >> The the 91 updates to be able to get the rostering in to say room this is a thing or is that not a complete?
094>> It's not complete. We're doing the best we can to work around it. >> Okay, that workound means >> it is a law that we have to abide by. >> Okay, so what are we short that we cannot functionally afford currently? some of the automated services. >> Okay. >> And being able to go in ourselves and and and keep it up to date. Currently, I we have to create spreadsheets, go through our stuff manually, you know, all of our our uh phone systems, all the sheets of every extension. We have to write the stuff down, get it set up, send it in with, you know, and if we get the levy, uh, we should be able to get most of that automated so that when we update one screen, it goes. >> So, our self-management
095would occur then with the passage of the levy as well as expediting the updating of this information properly. The sec second thing, geofencing is on hold because of cost effectiveness. >> Uh, yes. I mean, did we want to geoence our school year? So, somebody calls 911 from their personal cell phone, we get notice that somebody called from the school force, for example, or from the athletic fields or even the gym at after hours. Uh, I don't know if you recall, but not this summer, but the summer before, we had a child break their wrist or ankle, I forget, in the gymnastics area. And uh, used their cell phone and I didn't know about it. I just have, you know, cuz my office is near there and all of a sudden the fire department shows up
096at our door and they're like, "What do we do?" So then we had to figure out where it was at. And then the last item on there, so we have a donation of 154 phones to backfill things that are currently broken, but that's there is no option for new replacement. We have an antiquated system that needs replacing and this is just a band-aid for now. We have a new phone system, >> but we can't afford the phones that actually go with it. >> Perfect. >> That's perfect. That's what I was didn't aware of. >> So, I am and I don't have the budget to buy them. So, I have put the feelers out to my friends out there who are changing out their phone systems and can afford to get the new phones and I'm
097scraping what they have what they were going to throw away. So eventually everyone gets their iPhone 15 or 25, whatever we're at, but we can't afford to do that. >> Correct. >> Very good. Okay. Thank you. >> So >> that's all I need. >> Yep. Uh yesterday I met with Henipin County or I'm sorry this morning I met with Henipin County Operations Center Captain Spencer Baky and our intention is to port 50 to 100 cameras into Henipin County Operations Center and we're in the process now with the SRO's to ident reidentify the cameras and uh the one concern that we have is data privacy. in terms of those cameras. And so Dr. Riddle Hoover and myself are going to work on that. I'm going to write a brief and he's going to work his channels
098to see what he can do. My hope is that we would be able to say take the outside cameras and have them designated by the legislature as a public space. Therefore, the cameras would be a public type camera similar to the traffic management cameras that Mindot has and that would allow us then to more easily share that data with law enforcement if there were an emergency. And Friday I had uh the good fortune to meet with uh Angie Craig, a representative or lison officer for Angie Craig and for Clolobachar and they both and we talked about it for a half an hour or more and they both agreed that we should try and do something and that they would be willing to help in our efforts to uh streamline that effort. So, I thought that
099was positive and uh so I'm hoping to write up the legal brief sended by the department of data administration which is the state attorneys and then pass it on to Dr. Riddle. Um and and on that just sorry on that and I'm just going to add Jessica asked even though that's a thing public space that those images would still be protected image >> not like go to a website and see what's going on on I94. >> It's all under usern. It's still protected image based to the district in Havan County. >> It would be >> law enforcement in an emergency situation. they'll be able to look at that. >> And we are one of the few districts that I'm aware of that's not currently working towards that cooperation within Henipin County. >> Yeah. >> Uh
100they currently have oh is there 1500 or 1,800 cameras already installed into their operation center. >> And a lot of that push is from the ascension uh that recently happened. So, um, we added cameras at each building. We were fortunate to find some funding from a previous bond that they had some little extra money from. And I already had the plans in place for future. So, we were able to add some cameras in each building. One of them is just down the hall at special ed to help watch the kids down here just across from us. Uh, the loading docks uh inside and outside. And then there's the food service loading dock. Uh, we were able to put some extra protections in there and then those cameras overlook additional parking lots. Uh, one of the
101issues that Henipin County and Bright County mentioned to us is that they would like to be able to see in an emergency, particularly the bus parking lots because if they render that a crime scene, we lose our buses. So, they are actually helping us to come up with an alternative plan. in case that happens. Um, planned upgrades to our existing servers that is in the works. Uh, I've been told that I need to get it done before the end of September because it's coming from last year's funding. And we do and we were already told by our our vendor that we need an additional server to handle all the extra traffic. and that replacement server is on hold because I just don't have the 15 $20,000 to put it back. And then of course the
102planned additions in the future that we've already talked about in the past for the RMS and reams I would need about 80 to 100,000 120,000 depending on inflation for those. And we've already walked the walk and we've already got the quotes and we've got it all prepositioned. We just don't have the funding to do it. crisis management. Uh we've been very busy in this field. Uh San Diego Hook Promise, we've entered our second year. Uh all of our teams at the schools have been established and our district office has been established. Uh the students have been trained or briefed on on some of it. And I'm hoping to put a parent message out uh next week or soon thereafter on the services that Sandy offers. uh the Olympia guys, which sounds crazy as a name,
103but um it's basically these manuals. You may have seen some of them. And yeah, I love you guys is our relocation and reunification standards. In the past, if there's an incident inside of the building, our Alice protocols still um are first. But the moment that we step out of the building or that happens outside of the building, law enforcement uses these standards. And in our emergency procedures, law enforcement and emergency services now uses these protocols. So this summer, uh Mike and I, we went through all of our emergency manuals and we realigned them to what's called the ICS system and then that was pre-approved. I don't see Paul here, but Paul Manard was gracious enough to go and have another review of all that on the administrative side. um for our relocation and reunification. Uh
104we had a site to the east of us which because I'm being recorded I'm not going to say uh we have now added a site a large site to the west of us as well. So that if we have say a chemical issue with the train and depending which way the wind blows uh we can now go east or west for reunification process and Wright County Sheriff's Department currently um working with that facility to map it all out so that because they'll map it out on behalf of where the press is going, uh where the parking is, where we park, where the buses go, who's going to, you know, and they'll do all that mapping for us. Uh next, this Wednesday, uh or Thursday, I'll be in Monaceel, one of the reunification sites that Wright
105County has is a movie theater uh near Monaceel and they have already done all their mapping and their plans for that and they want all the schools to show up to do a walk through with them on all the steps. So that is next later this week. um safe schools. Uh we've worked with Becca at Wright County and we've scheduled all those events for this year and most of them are at the high school. And the next step is that uh we'll be going through all of our current lists and making sure that the appropriate people are on the safe school rosters. Uh soon we'll be doing classroom notification through our clever touch panels in the classrooms. I'm waiting for the elementary to catch up and then hopefully by I want to say Christmas or
106the new year uh we should have the ability hopefully to the panels in an emergency and broadcast or use them for morning announcements. Uh staff mandatory training. I believe this is our second or third year of doing this. Uh this is the mandatory training online. Uh currently we're sitting at on paper it was 57% but after I relooked at the data we're actually closer to 70% of staff 100% done with their online training this year which is amazing. And of the 14.5% who have started and not finished, they're sitting at the 65% completion rate. So I'm guessing I have about 20% of people who have not started and uh they'll be on my naughty list and and that they'll be spammed for the next month to get it done. So because uh Dr. Ridle Hoover
107has an obligation with to certify that the training has been completed. So, uh, cyber security, I have not gotten the full report back from our audit last spring, but I I've been told that we've improved. What we did was instead of getting the audit back, uh, we have external and internal scans that I did right as school started so that we could get the latest data in the audit. And I'm waiting for them to compile that data to find out if our updates and if our ports and all that stuff are secure. I'm going to go as fast as I can here. Oh, and we did do uh since we switched insurance carriers, they also performed an audit on us and the audit there was 80 about 85% um to the good. And when you
108consider when we talked about this like three, four years ago, we were sitting at like 40% to the bad. I think that's fairly remarkable >> of that. How much? >> How many like is there a lot of high-risisk ones in that at all or is it what? >> No. In the new audit from the insurance company, there was a lot of like pluses and minuses. So, some of it it's like Yeah. What can you do? >> Yeah. Because like in mail hardening, if I really hardened it to their standard, we wouldn't get an email from half of MD, for example. So, um, so I'm still waiting on the primary plan. Uh, crisis management teams, again, we met this summer with the principles and others. Uh, we had a good law enforcement presence in September. We
109had probably, I don't know, seven law enforcement officers from Wright and Henipin County come down and help us review our plans. And they gave us templates that they want us to follow for them. uh they want us to rewrite our unification plans to follow their template so that they can apply to all the schools in Wright County for example. So we're working on that. And then staff development, we're tentatively planning on uh having an event in October. Uh we've already gotten um acceptance from outside agencies to come in and help train our non-licensed staff on uh safety and identification. Uh Mike and I are meeting tomorrow to work on the safety committee agendas and the staff development agenda. So all right, infinite campus. Let's move on to happy stuff. Uh we started fall past this
110year at the high school and we have the middle school already to go. Um however, they want to see how the high school goes and work out the bugs there. and then their bulk team indicated an idea or uh an acceptance of it. Uh they want to see how it's going to roll out. Uh parental online attendance, if you didn't know it, it's on and parents can use their phones or their websites to uh say that their kid isn't going to be here and but you know put down attendance. And it's surprising how many parents know that their students have like medical appointments scattered throughout the year and they're all in there. So, so that's actually kind of nice. Uh we've updated all the student credentials K through 12. Uh we had a mix of
111credentials. uh a and part of a it's been a a process that has taken a few years but in the past it was basically the student's name full name that was part of their credentials and that has now gone away and now we use abbreviations and and a number which for us tells us what grade they're in or what grad year and so it's more uniform and it's easier and it's more secure in terms of the audits Uh all the standards have been put in. Current standards from NDE are in campus now. Uh however, fifth and sixth grade have moved away from standards and are doing grading. Uh but the elementarymentaries are out there as well. And we've started out custom forms in the past like 504s and SPEs. Uh those documents were put in
112folders and and teachers kept them in their desk and top drawer or wherever. Uh those days are gone. 504s and speds are now all in campus. So, it's secured by the classroom teacher in their stuff. Same with all the technology and field trip forms. For example, uh this year we put the field trip form in what's called ORR, our online registration that we asked parents to complete before school started. and the middle school field trip. Uh, out of the 500 and some students in the middle school, I only had a hundred that didn't sign the field trip forms in advance. So, that saves the the office quite a bit of time. Uh, one to one program. Uh, this year I had to gut the kindergarten. I didn't have the funds to purchase new Chromebooks. Uh,
113so we had to remove them from kindergarten. And those Chromebooks went to grades five and six. as we move the carts from the elementary to better manage the fifth and sixth graders. Those Chromebooks are now staying inside the building and not going home unless we have a snow day. Uh and of course we're improving cost controls and the fees. Uh to give you an idea of the fees from last year, uh as far as I know, I have them all into the system. Uh last year I I levied or or placed fees uh for $6,947 in repairs. Uh currently uh I've we've received about $3800 of that and 3,100 is still outstanding, which is about a 55% pay rate so far. So I'll be doing the next Dunning cycle here soon. So maybe we can
114bump that up to 65%. Uh part of the protocol that I wrote will indicate that I'm guessing as early as right after Christmas. I'm not going to do it before Christmas, but sometime after Christmas, uh we might actually start requesting that some of these be sent to collections like we've been doing with. So, uh all right, active archive scanning. Uh it's a new program we started this summer. Uh we had our records room was bursting at the seams at the high school. Uh whether you know it or not, the school district's been around since 1856. And we have some of those records in that room are over 100 years old. >> You know, old school student records. So we started archiving them this summer. and uh with the staff that were here work or get
115paid unemployment and we got them to work. So uh I think they made it up to the letter D or E in in the file cabinets. So it's going to take us a while, but they got a lot done. So we're going to continue working on our retention schedules and protocols with the uh the people that kind of house it is the actual the uh Minnesota Historical Society. So, we're working with that and the pro policies and protocols to figure out because next we're moving into the district office and we're going to start archiving some of those so that we can start cleaning house. 24th September, I have outside agencies coming in and a vendor coming in and we are going to practice our restore and our backups and we're going to go through our
116backups. Uh there's a thing called air gap and and separated. So, uh, we're going to be testing those on the 24th. And that goes with the archive because currently I have the archive in three different places. And we want to make sure that those three places, one of them, I suspect if we got attacked or or malware that that would fall. But the other two places we want to make sure that they're they're separate, air gapped, and encrypted so that they're safe because we're going to burn the paper or destroy the paper and we cannot lose our data. So that's that event is on the 24th. Woohoo. Um, Office of Civil Rights, we've submitted it timely. There was a lot of emails coming through that they want to do it every single year, which bang
117your head on the wall, but all of a sudden everything went quiet. So maybe they did away with it because all of a sudden it was just silence. capital projects this year. I replaced the firewall and then we also on our second year project, we uh replaced the second half of the batteries and all of our emergency systems and our switches and and stuff like that. The fire marshall came by last year and said that we needed to have a minimum of three hours on our critical infrastructure because our alarm panels are now connected to our switches. So we have to maintain and with 911 uh we have to maintain a certain degree of time or else we have to vacate the building. Uh the protection plan uh which I alluded to earlier uh I'm
118planning on putting that out. I wanted to have an opportunity for for the board to to kind of look at it and review it. Uh I'm planning on issuing a protection plan for the devices of $40 per device per student. at $80 a year per family and it'd be a 50% reduction if they're enrolled in the educational benefits. Uh this is no no change from the last time we spoke about this. And so if there's no concern, I'm going to keep moving forward with it and probably start putting it out next week. The fees are outlined in the handbook. I think it's page six. And just so you can see it, those are the fees that we charge people and stuff. $250 for a Chromebook is actually cheap now because with inflation and other things,
119the cost is now from 325 per unit. So that those prices jump, but we actually go back in time because we look at the overall age of the unit and I I don't charge for the whole price if they're five years old. All right, budget doom and gloom. I hate to even talk about it, but a lot of the products that I'm renewing, I have seen way greater than 3% cost increase this year. Google, Microsoft, our VMware, a lot of those have gone up over 10%. In costs and and those are stuff that we can't control. Uh, with the current environment, uh, I'm using about less than 75,000 that I have available for capital. And uh part of it is I've also lost matching grants to the federal government in the use of some of
120those. So that doesn't go very far. Uh I've already burned probably three twothirds of that already this year. Um which means I've kind of lost the funding for the teacher classroom devices already. Uh, I've already been decreasing our software licensing and I'm on a real tight limit. I only have like a hundred extra licensing for say Google, all of our Google accounts and that allows me to accommodate for drops and ads so we don't have to babysit it every single day. Uh, and we have other risks. I'm not going to read through all of them. Um, but there's quite a few. Um I did drop staff development for our staff for uh teachers and for technology staff in terms of like Adobe, Google, Microsoft Office. We were maintaining uh training sites so that staff can
121go in and do additional online training and my staff could work on their certifications. Uh I had to drop that. I just don't have the funds to maintain it anymore. And then uh if we do have the loss of the levy or the levy doesn't pass this year uh in November I'll be working on reduction plans uh based on next year's costs. By Christmas I should have most of the annuals paid and I'll be able to then figure out the total cost of our inflation costs with that and then extrapolate that from next year's budget to send it to Bridget. And if we were to maintain a lot of our uh I may have to recommend us dropping a staff to in order to maintain our our core our core programs. It's I wish I
122could say otherwise. So the levy is important this year. On the highlight, it's not all doom and gloom. I was able to secure a $60,000 grant with Bridget's help uh from MDE that reimbures us for cyber security stuff this year. and uh that since we've already paid out for a lot of those services uh that funding when it comes back in uh which will start coming in in October uh is additional and we've allotted that 60,000 to help cover uh smartboards in the elementary because those smartboards are horrible the ones that are existing. So, it won't be enough to get all of them, but hopefully we can knock out three people. So, cross our fingers and it's two little pants when it's done. Uh, anyway, again, I'm not going to waste too much time on
123this because you do have it in your packet. Uh just note that these are some of the costs that we had anticipated or planned over a fiveyear cycle and all currently with the exception of my cyber security and internet services which I really can't do without uh the other stuff uh my wired and wireless network items are now all on hold. I don't have the funding for it. Uh so if that stuff goes down we'll just have to figure it out or go out until we can. Currently, we're supposed to be getting about a grant for about $300,000 that would last for five years. However, this grant comes from the FCC. Uh we've applied. I've talked to the companies should get it, but it usually shows up in June. It today when I checked it,
124it's not there. So with all the politics at the federal level going on and the poor communications, it may have been cut and they're waiting for the legal stuff to come down because I know on part of it there was a big political thing on uh hotspots for buses and and other things and that did they did kill that but that's from the same funding pot. So, they may have killed all of it. And if that's the case, uh, in at the end of this month, which is two weeks from now, I'm supposed to declare the projects for next summer so that we can base the funding from it. But that funding right now at the federal level is absent. So again, we may have lost 300 about $325,000 in funding, which we would have
125to make up. Uh let's see. Uh the other part um in terms of the phones the other grant uh I do have about $18 to $20,000 in reimbursements on another grant that was approved that's coming down. So this year so far uh I think I'm pushing close to $100,000 in additional funds um from the grants and the donations. And like when we did the security cameras, uh, this last go around, I had an outside private party offer to buy the cabinets that we needed to. We're not in the school district, but they bought it. >> So, and so that was nice of them. Um, just so you know that we coordinate with a lot of different services on the outside. I'm not going to go through all of them except uh last Friday I met
126with the Minnesota National Guard, a general and a colonel who run the cyber uh op the cyber departments for Minnesota military. And the colonel said that if we had trouble, they would help us. So, um, that's kind of an extra insurance card that they would be willing to offer their resources to help us mitigate if we had trouble. Uh, and that we're going to work stuff out in the future on that. Other parts like CISA at the federal level, they have cut back. They had budget cuts, you know, as you know. So, we've lost a lot of our additional training and support from them. One thing that we did lose was our MDBR reporting from MSISC, which is the election people. Last year at this time, we had uh in just the first week of
127school, we had 513 malware attacks that were prevented from the use of what's called MDVR. We have now lost that. So, we are now they are now hitting us directly at our firewall. So we have to watch the stuff coming out and make adjustments almost daily whereas before they would do it for us. They said that they'd provide the service if we pay them I think it was a thousand plus dollars a month but I don't have it and I'm not the only one. Many school districts in Minnesota they don't have it either. We are trying to work it out where MNIT pays for it but so far that's not moving very far. So, uh, and then of course we've had lots of right-handed police and safety and emergency meetings. >> All right. Did I
128keep it quiet? >> Any questions for Mr. Keen? >> Nothing. >> Mr. Ken, I really appreciate this um and your your extra work just digging for money. We talk about that every time you come here. Um there's no way we would be anywhere that we are now without you going out for those additional grants. And we may need to look at figuring out a way to keep that service going after this school year. >> Where are the one other thing I forgot to mention is that the state legislature cut uh telecommunications equity access aid and we'll still get it for the next bianium after that's gone. That was one of those cuts that they pushed out for education that you guys don't know about. So last year 9,000 600 like $9,700 is what we got
129back and so in two years it's gone >> and that'll be for all that. Okay. So, um, I have an email into Long Mo at the finance department to see if there's anything else we can do, >> but thank you, Mr. Ken. >> All right, going from one to the next, right? So, now we're going to go to Bridget. >> Okay. Use a little more enthusiasm. >> Yeah. So, preliminary levy certification. Welcome. >> Good evening. >> This is a fun time of the year. All right. So, our proposed certification um that we're going to hear all about this evening is um actually for taxes payable in calendar year 2026 from our residents, but remember it's revenue for the 2627 school year. So, while we just started a a school year, we're going to start talking
130about the next school year already. Uh so, my recommendation to the board this evening is that we approve this proposed levy at maximum. So maximum is a a term that's used to allow us to continue to let MDE do their work and adjust funding formulas and funding streams. Um and that we get the maximum amount available to us. I will be back again in front of you in December to certify the final levy, but right now that maximum just allows us to keep that um open and it protects us um as like I said those levies go up and down. So, um, this is a better avenue for schools as opposed to levying a specific dollar amount because should something change in the legislature and allow us to revenue allow us access to revenue, if
131we certify that certain dollar amount, we wouldn't be able to get um that le by not doing maximum. So, what does maximum mean? Um, and so in your board packet this evening, I have for you a spreadsheet um, of the proposed dollar changes. I'm not going to walk through all of these levies and what they mean and and what all these adjustments mean and and all of that stuff this evening with you, but what I want to draw your attention to is the top of that Excel spreadsheet where you have a summary. Um, and so our last year payable 2025 levy. So that's the the levy that everybody's paying this calendar year for us uh for this school year. Our property taxes certified was 8.5 million roughly overall all three funds. So we do certify
132property taxes in the general fund, the community service fund, and the debt service fund. And this evening, our proposed payable 2026 levy would be 8.9 million. So it's up about $400,000 or almost almost 5%. The bulk of that change is in our general fund. Uh and I want to talk about what's what's happening in the general fund. There are a few things that's happening there. The first is we do have a slight enrollment increase. And then remember with that um we do have an inflationary increase as well attached to that. So that is the bulk of um that $398,000 you're seeing it equates to about $125,000 of tax revenue increase for us. Uh the other thing that is happening to our levy, if you do look into the details, there is down below a tiff
133adjustment and that's a tax increment financing adjustment that was made to our levy last year in the form of a negative adjustment. So it actually last year um dropped our property tax levy by about a hundred not about $108,000. So unfortunately that is coming back as a positive for us this year. So that's raising taxes back up. So we did see that benefit last year, but it's it's raising taxes back up again because we don't have that. And so we don't have a lot of control over tiffs, you guys. They flow through cities when cities make improvements to blinded property areas. And so we they literally give us the cash and then a year later we have to cycle it back and actually I shouldn't say that we get to keep $25,000 and then we
134cycle it back to the state of Minnesota through this levy adjustment to us. So it's kind of weird. Um thankfully it's only $100,000 um right and not millions or something like that. Um we never because that will really make our our taxes fluctuate. Uh the other thing that's happening is we have an unemployment levy that's up about 50,000 and the reason for that is we're really seeing a rising cost in our unemployment costs. Um and so we don't know and we're really uncertain about this out in the unemployment funding and if that will be available to us. So I did increase that a little bit. I am finalizing FY25. there is a possibility I'll drop that down 20,000 or something like that before September 30th when this is final and I'm waiting for the auditors
135to audit and kind of still holding on that one right now but that is the reason for that line item specifically to be increasing um we can levy to be reimbured for that so that's trying to just recoup some costs now in the summary that I provided for you this evening It looks like the general fund alone is going up 11.73%. Um, that is true. Our residents will not see or feel an 11% increase to their specific property tax role. It's just the difference between 3.4 million and 3.8 million. um they will see an increase slight potentially from our portion because our portion is going up but it's not going to be like 11% individually. So that's more of a mathematical formula. I just want to dislain that to all of you because it does
136look like a double digit increase um in our overall levy. when they spread that across everybody, like I said, as long as the homeowner's property tax value is staying relatively flat, they're they're not going to feel that 300 4 I should say that $400,000 increase and it won't be a 12% increase unless of course values are going up 12 134 and there's other things happening. But I just want to disclaim that it's like I said overall this whole thing is 4.91%. But the general fund is a lot higher just because of the bigger dollar number. >> Any questions about the dollars and percentages? >> Looking around. Any questions? >> All good. >> All right. So we are required to certify this proposed levy to the county auditor by like I said the end of this
137month uh as well as to MDE. So I will submit this information to those county auditors and they will use this information um to send out proposed property tax um mailings to the residents in November. The other thing I also want to mention this evening as required by law we are required to hold a truth and tax taxation hearing. um that will be conducted during one of our regular schoolboard meetings. The statute requires um this evening that I state the date and time of that regular schoolboard meeting. Um and so that meeting is scheduled for Rockford Area Schools to be held um here in this building on December 15th at 6:00 pm. >> Thank you. So this is an item up for consideration as this is an annual item and history will show if you
138look back the this board will always go for the maximum ask um on this levy renewal. So I'd appreciate a motion to certify the proposed levy 25 payable 26. >> I'll make that motion. >> Thank you Miss Johnson and a second. >> Second. >> Thank you Mr. Morgan. There's first and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by I. I >> post and that does carry unanimously. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> All right. Uh moving on. Resolution appointing election judges. Dr. Ryder. >> Yep. We have uh six individuals who have come forward um as folks who would be willing to serve as election judges for the election that be held November 4th, 2025. And this board must certify um a resolution, I'm sorry, appointing these election judges. >> Excellent. To
139include it in your board packet is the resolution as well as the names of those that have stepped forward to be the election judges. This is a resolution. I would appreciate a motion to approve as such. >> I'll make a motion to approve the resolution appointing election judges. >> Thank you, Miss Pasca. There's a first. Can I have a second? >> I'll second it. >> Thank you, Miss Johnson. First and a second discussion. Seeing none, madame clerk, please call the role. >> Beth Frasco, >> I. >> Jessica Johnson, >> I. Eric, >> hi. >> Chris Morgan, >> hi. >> Jamie Hilstrom, I >> Kevin Jim, >> I. And that does carry unanimously. Thank you so much. We'll continue on to next item, which is the negotiations update. Mr. McNelte, please join us. Thank you for
140joining us and being with us tonight. Uh, negotiations are ongoing. >> Uh, they are. And uh just a quick update there. We have another meeting coming up next Monday just for college. Um we did have our August meeting had to be uh cancelled due to uh uh to person person schedules and stuff. So we just had a meeting here last week and as you can see on all the TAS on there we're still on the language. We have not got to the finance part that is looking to possibly be coming up here at the next meeting and meeting after. Um, we have 1 2 3 4 5 nine items that both sides are looking over for this next coming Monday meeting that has to do with language. Most of it's u word smithing but there's
141a couple items may go back once or twice more. So otherwise um no financial numbers to update and it's it's going well and have been staying under probably a good hour and a half two hours because it means kind of come in some very simplistic language a lot of clean up. >> Okay. So mainly cleanup language and and no financial impacts as of yet in negotiations. Excellent in those items that are there. So thank you. Appreciate all of that. Any questions or comments from the negotiations committee. >> I'd just like to comment that negotiations are going well. Um they're a great group to work with. >> Yeah, >> we're very appreciative. >> Perfect. >> Thank you so much uh for that update. We will move on then, Mr. McNelte, to meal prices. This normally would
142have been brought to you in August, but MDE did not get this up till right before school started. So, obviously, we had to go ahead and we went with the the prices that they give you knowing that assuming we can make the changes, but knowing that the history of the board shows that they and MD sets the prices and and the board backs it up. So, the new prices are 250. It was$240 last year. The lunch is 505. It was $5 last year. And again, it's the same rules with the free meals. If they pick a second item, it is an adult priced cost to the student, too. So, it's that 505. And the recommendation is then for to the board to approve this um and confirm what we already have actually had to put
143in place to get the year moving. Again, MD was as food service quite late on that. So, >> are these costs uh retroactive to the beginning of the year or is it >> Yes. Yes. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you so much. Uh I appreciate a motion to approve meal prices for 2425 or 2526 school year. Sorry. >> I'll make a motion to approve those prices. >> Thank you, Miss Johnson. And a second, please. >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Miss Hilstrom. There's first and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by I. >> I opposed. And that does carry unanimously. Excellent. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. McNelte. Um moving on, collective purpose. There is a final read for several policies uh 400s, 5,6s, and eights. There's one Rockford policy inside of
144there, 709R. Uh just a reminder for the board that that is a Rockford Eised policy away from an MSBA uh policy. So, any comments or concerns from the policy committee? >> No. All right. Dr. Idaho Hoover, anything to add? >> Nope. All good. Perfect. So, as this is a final read, I'd appreciate a motion to approve. >> I will make a motion to approve. >> Thank you, Miss Johnson, and a second. >> I'll second. >> Thank you, Mr. Shadine. There's a first and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor signify by I. I opposed. >> That does carry unanimously. Moving on to number 10, resolution of acknowledgements, contributions. Dr. Idle Hoover. >> Yep. Um, as we do monthly, I want to thank all of those who have donated uh time and
145um financial resources as well as goods. In particular, we had a wellness fair and Mr. McNelte and uh Cindy went out and got a bunch of donations that were then raffled off to our participants. It was a really cool day. um they did a masterful job with it and it was super fun and uh company workshop week and um I want to thank all of those who were kind enough to share donations um in in money andor goods. >> Thank you. And any good or penny is helpful to the district for our students. So this is a uh resolution but I would appreciate a motion to approve. I'll make a motion to uh approve the resolution of acknowledgement of contributions. >> Thank you, Miss Hilstrom. There's and a second. >> Second. >> Thank you, Miss
146Mr. Morgan. Uh first second any discussion. Madame Clerk, call the role, please. >> Jamie Hilstrom, I. >> Chris Morgan, >> I. >> Jessica Johnson, >> I. >> Eric, >> I pra. >> Kevin, >> I. Excellent. That carries unanimously. Then we'll continue on. Um, letter 10B, we are going to have negotiations meeting Monday, September 22, 3:30 in the district office boardroom. Policy committee Monday, October 6, 2:30 district office conference room. Negotiations committee meeting Monday, October 6, 3:15 district boardroom, and school board work session, Monday, October 6th at the district office boardroom. All of those dates and items are in good shape. Thumbs up and yes. Letter 10 C. We are going to go into close session. So the board will enter into close session to discuss negotiation parameters pursuant to Minnesota statute section 13D.03. I'd appreciate
147a motion to go to close session. >> Make a motion. >> Thank you, Miss Johnson. Eric Gordy will second. Any discussion? >> All those in favor? >> Opposed. And we are now going to close session at 8:33. Get into the session at 8:59 p.m. We just got finished with our close session negotiations. Uh same people are still in the meeting as when initially called by our clerk at the beginning of the meeting. Uh we will go on to attendee board committee updates. Miss Johnson. >> All right. So I went to the Rockford welcome back. I also went to the Maso welcome back and spoke at that one. um welcoming the staff back there. Um board prep. Uh I went to a training actually um that was given through MSO called deescalation training. Not really a
148board thing, but I just wanted to share that Masico gave this training. Um I did it as a sub over in Delano wanting to have the training, but I talked with Dr. to write a Hoover about it saying this was absolutely amazing training and would like to see general ed have that training as well because it would be really good to have that in our classrooms. Um retirement committee meeting negotiation and I attended the chamber meeting as well. Dr. Ry gave us presentation was wonderful um and that is it. >> Excellent. >> Oh I said board prep right? >> Yep you did say board prep. Mr. Morgan you have anything to share? >> No material updates. Thank you very much. Uh, Miss Hilstrom. >> Uh, yeah, I had the, uh, retirement committee meeting, negotiations meeting,
149uh, the chamber lunchon, and the coffee conversation. >> Thank you so much, M. Prescott. >> Just cheering you on from across the world, >> Mr. Shadine. >> Just negotiation meetings. >> Excellent. Uh, and then I will go through mine then. We had um, we had a short election conversation. Uh, Dr. Rid Hoover and I did about um a couple things that we could share with the external committees um and communicating that way. Had a board chair chat where we talked about some districts offering their uh settlements um from a freeze up to a 2 3% uh board prep call had an AMSD meeting um which I joined virtually and Dr. Ryder Hoover shared with you all the uh Leatherman uh survey results which were very interesting. Um continuing on from there, that was about it.
150Oh yeah, a little bit of Northwest Suburban work inside of there as well. >> Um just talking about the kick of the year. So that's about the end of my things, which is good. Um any questions for anyone on those items? Very good. Then we will continue to move on to adjournment number 11. >> Make a motion. Dang it. Jessica Johnson made the motion. Eric seconds it. Discussion. All those in favor by I I opposed. Carries unanimously.