001I'd like to call the meeting to please to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Welcome everybody. We're glad you're here. Um, we will need a motion and a second to approve the agenda for today. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. I'll second it. Have a motion and a second. All in favor of approving the agenda say I. Again, same sign. The agenda is approved. We have no one signed up for open forum tonight. So, we'll move on to communications. Uh we will begin with our director of business services. Nice to see you, Robin. Robin became a grand um again this week. Thank you. That's so sweet. He has a little Miller. He's he's
002very cute. Very cute. He's as cute as his other his siblings. But um okay, so the first one I have is enrollment. We are holding steady at 3201. I think we had 3202 last month. Um, but you will notice our Wildcat Academy is up to 35. So, kind of evening out to where our high school is down 34, but our Wildcat Academy is at 35. So, um, and then on the graph in the back, you can see it's just kind of holding steady there. Think I have any questions on it? Okay. Um, on to the uh DBS report. I was just looking at it earlier and I'm like there's really no anomalies that are sticking out on budget to actual. Looks like we're right right in there every month um compared to the last three
003years. And then on the graphs, our general fund is um looking about the same over those three years, but slightly better this year. You can see revenue is a little bit higher. So that's a good thing. We're moving in that right direction. Um for food service, um we did make a jump there to get our revenue up a little bit. You can see they're pretty even now, which is good. Um then community ed still have our revenue over expenditures. So we're looking good there as well on our treasures report. It's moving through Michelle. Sorry. Um, the only thing I wanted to point out there again, we do have out an outstanding deposit again at the end of the month. And we did ask why that was happening. And I guess the state is now sending
004deposits in a check rather than an AC for some reason. So we're it's supposed to get here on the last day of the month and it's not hitting our books until the next day. So thankfully we've got enough money in there to be able to make payroll every month. I know. I don't know why that's happening. I'm going to keep checking on that. Uh the other two thing we had two um investments come due this month. Um we had one at 4.6% and one at 4.55. Interest rates have come down. So we did reinvest one at 4.15 and one at 4.22. So interest rates are coming down a little bit. It's good on the loan side, not good on the investment side, but we're still above 4%. And we do get 4% in our um
005checking and savings accounts, too. So that's a really good rate for those. So we're happy about that. Um the other thing I want to mention, we did finish our audit. We're just finishing up the last things. As of right now, we do not have any findings this year, so we're hoping that sticks. Um, everything went well. Um, I will give Laura 100% credit on that. She did a great job in year two. And I think Laura, you spoke with our auditor, too. And I mean, I haven't heard anything. So, we'll have that presented in December along with truth and taxation. It's going to be a great meeting. We are looking forward to it. Yes. Yeah. So, that's all I have unless anybody has any questions. Any questions for Robin? Thank you. Thanks, Robin. Okay, student
006representative reports. So, Anukica um did email me. It is the final rehearsal for the musical tonight. She has a big role in the musical, so she can't be here, but she sent me an update. And just by the way, Sarah and I went over to the high school today and we interviewed students interested of juniors being interested on being on the school board. So, we'll make the decision and we'll have a new junior added to the board by the next meeting. It was lovely talking to the kids today. Actually, we have some amazing kids in our high school and it's just made by an entire day to just talk with them. So, that was fun. Okay, Anukica's update. Winter sports are starting. Girls hockey won their first game against Holy Angels this week. Other teams
007are getting going. Musical Oakland's on Friday. She said come check it out. The dates are on the theater website and on Instagram. And winter's coming. Everyone's been excited about the northern lights and snow. She said stoked, not excited. I put that word in. And the Wild Mountain just opened. So many people are excited about skiing and snowboarding. So that's her update. All right, we'll move on to board committee updates. Does anyone have board committee updates for us? Um, I was at the scrum meeting last night and I shot you guys an email with their a link to we had their presentation their behavioral services team and they're just doing really cool work. So, that's how you get a link to email. But check out this emotions map they're using. But this is like all levels.
008It's not just special ed, it's all levels. It's just cool. I think it's fun. It's more straightforward on the back, but the mood Show Josh where he is on where am I in mover. What do you want to do if you want to move up to pretty a link to that and more resources in your Yeah. And they also have successful addit. Thank you. Any other committee updates? Brian and I were at a staff meeting and it was really good. Peter Leman presented and I always like Peter Leman. I think everybody who's been to one of his presentations was really good and Brian did a really good job of giving a synopsis of what Peter said. I think it all came in our to the board. And then uh Fred Nolan was the other one.
009And Brian, I got to be honest, I'm not quite quite sure if I follow Local Operational uh revenue. Yeah. But it's a different way of looking at how schools can get revenue. And I guess we're looking at every kind of way there is to equalize revenue because we probably aren't going to get it through levy local levies authority or through equalization of the formula. So they're looking at different options. I don't know. You know, I'm kind of asking kind of putting you on the spot. Do you get LOL? I Robin does as well, but I mean, I'll say this. I think they're going to work on because he presented that day. It was extremely technical and go to the capital and talk to people. They're going to have to bring it down about 15 notches.
010So, but it's it's not a good approach. They're just trying to figure out just ways. Unfortunately, and I'll talk about my report, we're going to be hurting for money uh for the state the next minute and I think they're just trying to figure out creative ways to do things to take the burden off local taxpayers and health districts like Chicago Lakes and our equity for finances to get to another step up and help us out to to get funding. It was a really good meeting and just the two of us. They actually had a selfie that somebody I was online. You were watching us still. Yeah. Anyway, it was it was good. Join those meetings. You know, I'm going to invite anybody who wants to go down. So, was Peter Leman's always I think just
011so informative. One of the things he did say and we just mentioned our open forum is getting parents vote up to 40% or more and how critical that is and it's kind of been one of the themes I think we've been talking about about passing this next bond and how important it is to get parents out to vote but some surprising data too. I don't know how many had a chance. I mean, it's a lot of information. And the the Fred Nolan one was you had to have kind of a microscope or you had to have some binoculars in order to see the tiny fine print of everything. It was a good meeting. Any other committees? Any negotiations? Negotiations. Yep. We met again this week. We continue to negotiate with our teachers union. So, we're
012working on making progress there. All right. If no other committee updates, we'll move on to the superintendent updates. We're going to commit dates. What do you have for us? I said three and I'll start off with the one with the money attached to it. So, we had a briefing meeting this week and our lobbyist Ally Do is on the call and they're just doing a precursor to the session coming up. This will not be a big one because it's going to be next year more more often the financial things come out at that point. But you just gave a somber reminder of the fact that right now we have a $6 billion deficit and that uh the next forecast comes out in February. Um some encouraging news is that they said there has been an
013uptick in revenue and taxes collected. I don't think it's going to have a major dent on that, but they are just telling us especially for this year the session they're going to have don't expect anything to come out of it. can probably be more policy laden bonding and hopefully nothing else to add on to our plates. But there we're very clear on the fact that there's not going to be a lot of money. There's also a lot of other committees like the Northstar committee that's really meeting right now to sort of sort through some of the reductions they recommend especially in special ed. And there's there's a reason to hesitate a little bit because of the fact that they have to make some decisions about how they're going to cut out the dollars they committed
014to the last session in reductions. There's fear that's going to come out of special ed and have a bigger impact on districts. So they haven't reached a conclusion, but I believe what was said too is if they do not reach a conclusion, then it's going to come out of the dollars we received a few years back for cross subsidy aid. what it's looking like it's going to come out of if they don't figure out a solution. So stay tuned. More to come on that. Um I just want to thank our high school students for their Veterans Day program. Um we didn't get a chance to text. We were meeting convening but I had heard from people that were there as parents, some of the veterans and obviously students and staff and just we have outstanding
015students in this district. Um and I just want to celebrate that. The comments I heard was that they were so great to observe the service that our people in our community have done and our kids just really hit every mark on that piece. So, just congrats to all the people that put that together. It's an awesome piece of our culture in this district and communities. It was really cool for for them to celebrate our veterans. And the last piece is if you drive 35 uh E and head down to the cities, take a look at the boards from the one by the Walmart and the one sort of by the Ford dealership. So we've started to launch our marketing campaign and it's uh vastly communication events. We've got a couple up there as well, the
016expo and the Nerf wars piece. And then we've also started our campaign for just our marketing of our school district and our programs. And just so you know, our theme is leave your imprint. So the wild cat print, leave your imprint. And uh we're excited. Some people are ready and we'll be tracking some of that data too, especially as we get into open enrollment season as well as for Wildcat Academy. We're looking to track some of the data about how you find out more about us and uh we're excited about having a presence out there. Thanks. So, how often does it show up on the billboard? How does it work? Is it a timing thing? So, they're 8second holds. Like each ad is 8 seconds. We're one every 16th. Um, but because the Walmart, like
017the sign by Walmart is brand new. Um, Chuck, the guy who owns the sign is getting us both basically. So, um I've seen us both north and southbound when we should only be northbound right now, but because there's not enough ads to fill Walmart, he's giving us more space. But eventually, we'll go down to one every 16. You'll see us just northbound by Walmart. I'm going to get in a car accident like waiting what the ads look like. I'm just telling you it can happen. All right. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Brian. All right. So, we have our director of community education here during community education week to talk to us about what's happening in the community education. Dan, it's good to have you. Yeah, thank you. your daughter talks about her daily commute up
018and uh has that same issue of potentially getting in a car accident for community sign. Um I'm going to buzz through this fairly quickly. Many of you have seen um the outcome of our um of our strategic planning, but I put those slides in here as well. But what I wanted to do tonight was introduce you to the people behind the scenes. So I want to just ground us in um where where our program kind of is. We we have five full-time and part-time employees uh coordinators and man at the coordinator and manager level. Sorry. Um supporting 15 program areas. Um we've we've made 3.5 annual in revenue and that's an increase from 2.2 million in the 22 school year when I first started. My goal by my second my two two contracts from now
019I would like to double that number. So I'm going to put that out there now and then we'll talk in a couple years and see if I accomplish that goal. Um over 5,000 youth um and school age students have been served um or participated in our classes and we contract with over 60 community partners and super proud of that. Continue to try to build those relationships every opportunity we get. Uh we service all five cities in the district of course and then um we also partner with multiple athletic associations. Uh so that's just the revenue slide. Um so I want to introduce you to each of our each member of our team. Um, many of you guys know uh Danielle Brooks. Um, and uh, I I think the thing I'm the most proud of what
020she's done for us overall is when I first started here, the you guys heard a lot from the community relative to the use of our aquatic center and and you see from the numbers 150 to 180 swimmers are getting swim lessons. We have 40 to 50 aqua fitness members. We have our pool punch pass numbers are at 358. And then she's continued to grow the lifeguard pool staff now to 40 team members which is important metrics in order for you guys not to get emails and calls about why isn't the pool more busy. Um so these slides here when you guys look through this this is read only but this is this is these are the pieces each area this is kind of the strategies that were identified through our strategic plan process and kind
021of the initiatives that have come out of that. So, I'm those are going to be read only, but um for you guys and if we have questions later on, like outside of this meeting, Ryan said there's an opportunity for us to all connect that way. So, appreciate that opportunity. Want to introduce you to Jessica Hansen. She's our our brand new early childhood coordinator. And um she's sitting on an outdoor classroom that herself, her husband, myself, and Amy Grace got uh paid for the um through through the uh booster or uh not the booster club, but the uh PTO. Thank you. Um paid for the um the mulch there. But anyway, so we we put that together this summer. That's at primary school. We're hoping to do something similar at uh Taylor's Falls as well. but
022she's got a really really good passion for the work that she does. I'm excited to see kind of the direction that our program heads and I'm excited to pull out and want to thank Sarah Schmidt for so much work that she's done to help us with our Nelly screening which um we are going to be one of if not the only in the state to sort of provide that service to our four-year-olds. And it it grounds them in language in in support of literacy into their future and especially with the lens towards connectivity to the K1 system and what they're going to need to know and learn and grow from preschool age, but really help build those skills and those students um as they transition into uh their K12 uh life as a student. So,
023wanted to introduce you to her, the areas that she oversees, those are all those. Um Jamie, if any of you come to the WCC, Jamie's smiling face and happy happy greeting. Uh we have so many people within our community that know her know her story. She gets to know them, know their story, and just proud of the job she does to represent all things community first and foremost, but all things district, all things school, all things WCC. And she works really, really hard to balance a lot of needs relative to using our space in the evenings. And as you guys have heard me saying no, I think that's an important thing for us to bring as many community members into our spaces. We've been intentional about trying to bring our community members into the middle
024school, for example, over the last several years, multiple years. Brenda, Jenny, you guys know that. Um, just trying to make sure that we can engage our community, but also let them know here's here's where we are, right? Here's where here's why we have the needs we do. Um, and she does a great job of trying to juggle all that and balance all that for us. Um Betsy is the person to the left in that photo and she did authorize me to use this picture in this slideshow. Um she's been with us for 25 years I believe um in various roles within community education and as a result of growing through our program over the years. She has made so many connections with the the uh demographic that she serves and she serves them so very
025very well and does such a great job of of providing opportunities for all of our senior citizens to connect, providing ways and and little unique trips and little things that um they can do. And our Chisago Lake Pickleball Club, which she helped us get off the ground as well, we now have 125 members. So, this slide was sent in a couple couple weeks ago, I think, or a week or so ago. Um, and then Betsy plays in the ukulele club. So, I thought I'd give her a shout out with the 70 people that she's got in that group as well. Lot of ukulele players. It is. It's fun. There's Ian Lex. I'm sure all of you know Mr. Lexold and and he's at our podcast center. And hopefully you guys have seen us now on
026YouTube. We're now um television stars. So, I would welcome any of you to come and sit down at the hot seat and and we'd love to interview you, Mr. Dez has has sat through that before prior to the television, but with his fancy haircut now I'm really opening up my mind. Um um Ian does a really good job with our kids club. He's he you know we continue to kind of see that servicing between 325 and 350 360 families. Um and and we're kind of expanding some of those opportunities. We we've always closed previous years during like our breaks from school and we're you know that's a need that families still have. they still have to find that child care over Christmas break, right? So, we're kind of taking a look at all that comprehensively
027and trying to make sure we can serve as serve our families as best we can. So, again, his initiatives, his growth opportunities for us. Um, Stacy Pullman is a position I think I came and talked to you guys probably not quite two years ago about Stacy and and and uh Brian and Corey and Robin really supported as as I was trying to sell sort of this vision of this gap that I've seen. Um, those guys really kind of helped me frame it. They helped make sure I was driving in the right lane, make sure that we're really looking at all the different different possibilities and considering it from different ways. and what she's really brought to our team. So, we I kind of title her as a member benefit um coordinator. It's not a coordinator
028position coordinator level. It is on local 284, but um she has worked with our senior citizens in our community uh to help them connect to benefit opportunities in Silver Sneakers, Renew Active, things like that. And you see the numbers, that's again a couple weeks ago, but 474 and 439. and we were on a call prior to her position and I think we had likeund and something in the uh uh in renew active and we were just over 200 in silver sneakers. So you see the work she's done with and and and what they they said okay there's 700 and so many people in your district that could be on silver steam and at that time we were in the 200s and she's grown us to almost 500 and that's gives them the opportunity to interact
029with our space gives them the opportunity to be in the WCC at no cost we make a little bit of money uh uh as a result of that and you can see in fact we made $60,000 last year with Stacy so the position is exactly what we'd hoped it would be. And and then I throw other random ideas on her like, "Hey, let's let's figure out a way to rent our lockers out." And and she takes in a run and and and just does a great job for us. And I must uh since I I I better probably be transparent and say that I may be overshot a little bit on how much I thought our locker renters were going to be, but we're getting there. We're going to keep working. We're going to keep
030marketing it and keep trying to grow it. But it is an opportunity for us. Um, and then just to touch base on the Wildcat Community Center, every Christmas we've tried to sort of have an opportunity for people to connect with our space via let's give something, let's give back to our community. Um, this year we are going to collect uh toiletry items for our senior citizen community and for the nursing homes. And that's been great. I mean, we've we've we've colored um Christmas ornaments, we've done things like that. So the energy of my staff is just great. I come up with some random idea or give them the space to come up with great ideas and we try to take it and grow it and run with it. We're proud of of the connectivity that
031we created at the WCC. Uh and then our youth and adult enrichment coordinator, uh Christine has has been she started with us in a different position and um you know I just saw the opportunity in in what she could bring to the team and what she could bring to the table. She's such a breath of fresh air. Um, and she keeps me in line because I can be grumbly sometimes about I'm very business and very let's go. Let's let why isn't it this way? Let's drive this forward. And she's very much we have to be friendly and we have to be nice and we have, you know, so she kind of she really brings a great energy to the team. And then she's done such an amazing job just growing our programming. I think Lori
032and I had a conversation uh when one of our cataloges came out and Lori called and and congratulated myself, but really I know the extension was to the team overall and just how many offerings we have in there and a lot of that is because of Christine Milstead. So wanted you guys to make sure those of you who haven't met her or interacted with her knew her name, knew her face and the great job she's done to help grow all the programming we have. Uh and then again all these are the opportunities. So, opportunities overall, Brenda and I walking in talked about the marketing position. Um, Jessica was uh in a in a role of a front desk person for us in um uh preschool and she really just took a lot of our marketing
033and did it. Ian does some of it. Michelle um you know I mean when we started it was Michelle but when sort of Michelle as her duties sort of shifted. So Jessica really took a lot of that and I don't want to lose the momentum. I think a lot of the growth that I just pointed to is because we do a good job of telling our story and marketing ourselves. Brian pointed to the billboard. I mean, whatever opportunities we can possibly have to get the word out there about Chicago Lakes, first of foremost the Chaga Lakes community. So, that's an opportunity for us to grow. Um, Corey and I have had discussions, Brian as well has been in on some of those. Um, just making sure that we don't lose the momentum that we've had.
034So, that's one of the biggest areas that I feel like we could really look at doing. Um, and then I think just the connectivity overall. I really want to get kind of back settled into my day job and and we've had some transition and things like that that have sort of taken me away some from some of the things that I try to do. Um, but really connecting to the county resources, city resources, community resources around us, nonprofits and things like that. And then um you know Brian we're we're working as well on our emergency action plan and it's a comprehensive thing when you think about it through the lens of community education building renters after school classes at every one of our facilities things like that. So I'm working through that as well. So
035another area that I feel like hopefully in the next year or so that I can come back to you guys and have a concrete plan in place that we are going to roll out districtwide. That's all I have. Happy National Community Day. that stuff. Appreciate you letting me chat with you guys a little bit on such a special special day. Um, and I thank you guys so much for the support. I mean, every one of us have had one-on-one conversations. I appreciate the way you guys give me advice, ideas, energy, and and feedback. So, thank you guys so much. Well, I love your haircut, too. Thank you. Appreciate it. Got to go. My daughter did it last night. She was like I was like, I've got a school. I have my old deer hunting stuff
036going on. I'm like, Hannah, you got to make me look good. Mom would do this for me. It seems that we should have been giving you treats instead of you giving them, which is the great irony of this. Um, we I'm an aggressive, and I think the rest of us are too, but especially on social media, aggressive, passionate supporter, defender of community edat center. And we talk about cradle to the gray, but we often talk about education kind of being prek. I want to put the prek in there for for those prek teachers that do such a wonderful job for us and get that a great advantage that you provide for them to get into prek and a 12, but it's outside of there. The cradle to the grave, you know, I haven't heard that
037term a lot much anymore. used to be kind of popular several years ago, but I appreciate everything that community ed does and the Wildcat Center, which like I said, I'm aggressively passionately supporting the Wildcat Center and we see the social media garbage sometimes and I just say, when was the last time you were in there? Well, that pretty much ends the conversation. Yeah. And I I wonder if you can just give us because we can't be there from opening to close and what happens before opening and after close. What happens in that Wildcat Center that you could just encourage our community to come and enjoy and experience and see what goes on there? What's happening in that building? Because I haven't I have honestly I haven't been in there for several weeks now. Yeah. I
038mean, it's interesting. Every block of time sort of is serves a different purpose and and population, if you want to say it that way. So, we have our early morning people who come in and they're they're there for the fitness goals. They're there for the for the experience of, hey, I got to get to work, but I'm going to go and get my lift in. I'm going to go and get my walk in. I'm going to go and get whatever, right? And so, the people that work that shift are purposeful about building that relationship with that type of clientele. During the middle of the day, we really try to or middle of morning, I should say, early morning to midm morning. We really try to service the senior population that I pointed to with Why
039are you pointing at me? No, no, I'm on the street. I'm sorry. I'm the only senior in this building actually reached 65. No, no, I was pointing to the TV, sir. I'll point TO IT. NO. SO, you know, we really try to serve that population during that time and we've built a lot of fitness stuff and the numbers. We have a person that does our dryland fitness, I call it, but um it's um fit and balance, healthy stretching, things like that. Not real aggressive exercise, but just enough to get that senior population, which maybe you do qualify. I'm not sure, Jeeoff. I'll have to double check. actually five, but I think it might be a little too young, but um um try to get that population served during that time. And then we sort of
040have a lull where there might be some opportunities for our five head departments to come down and utilize the space. And the people that are comfortable coming to work out during that block of time are comfortable with the fact that there's, you know, more of our high school kid um type people type stu uh customer there at that point, let's just say. And then after school, our middle school friends, I mean, I have I can't tell you guys how many times I've worked until 6:00 p.m. and I've walked out the door. And I'm so thankful that that place exists because I see kids that are still there and I've been there since 2 o'clock. And they might just be sitting there watching a movie on their tablet at at the at the the benches outside
041in the hallway, but they've got a safe place to be. And then then we get then we pick back up and and now it's the workout crowd again. And and then they a lot of times you'll see the families, right? If you want to you want to get your bucket filled, come during that 5:30 to 7ish time. And you got dad working out up, you know, upstairs in the cardio room, you got mom in the gymnastics room with with their daughter and the son is out shooting back. I mean, it's just all sorts of of the microcosm of our community, right? And and then the closing time, it does kind of slow down a little bit from that 8 to nine hours, nine o'clock time during the weekday. And it's it's again back to sort
042of hey I I like a nice quiet spot to come and work out. So it's amazing to just watch that transition of and you know I've I've had the pleasure of being sometimes I have to be to work at 6:00 in the morning or 5:30 in the morning and and sometimes I'm there until 8 or 9. And to see that across that whole spectrum, Jeff, is amazing. And credit to everybody that was at this table at that time to help get that place built and had the vision and had the foresight because I say to community education people all the time like I'm so blessed to have this as part of my overall operation. Can I just say one thing that I forgot to say about Stacy, sorry, this just came into my mind. Um
043comm other community eds now are reaching out to us about Stacy's job, her position, what she's doing. I've had multiple directors talk to me about it. She's working with North Branch about it. Um trying to get something similar to what we're doing with that position off the ground. I meant to say that. It was probably in my notes. I didn't cheat and use my notes because I'm trying to be Todd Marzeka. But anyway, he's not here to defend himself. I probably should have said something else. Yeah. What one thing that one thing that I would say about the community community center is if you are out there walking, it's a community hub. I mean, my kids have been out of school for a couple months, so I don't have that parent connection, maybe a couple
044years, whatever. But to to be up there and just walking some laps and all of a sudden, oh, there's the mom that I've known since kindergarten. Now we're walking laps. And then you meet up with the next person, now we're walking laps. It's It's a great place just to see community and see people, you know, the kids down below having fun and it's free to walk. Yeah. Yeah. If people aren't going, they're really missing out on, you know, Yeah. So, so thank you, Dan, for all you do and your staff. Yeah. Thank you. It's wonderful. Yeah. My favorite picture that we took over the years was um Harold and Betty sitting at the table having coffee in the morning and around them are people of every age. a young kid who's a homeschool student and
045they talk like that every day and I just walked by him one day and took snapped a picture and we've used it in some things with marketing and it I feel like that photo encompasses that space and the people in it right like to your point I mean everybody's so friendly and so welcoming and of all ages so it's it's it's amazing place to work thank you guys for believing in me well thank you Dan for being here. Yes, this really is an exciting place. Sorry, I went long. Ryan and I are working on me telling one less joke every time. That's my goal. Okay, we're going to move on to the consent agenda that includes claims and accounts, the personal items, contracts, past minutes, and so on. So, we'll need a motion and a
046second to accept the consent agenda for tonight. So, I have a motion and a second. All in favor of passing consent agenda say I. Again, same sign. Consent agenda passes. All right. We have no old business from OC. And in the area of new business, we do have a donation from the Chicago City Fire Department um for our middle school bridge field trip in the amount of $765. So, we'll need a motion in a second. We'll do a roll call vote for this. And a big thank you to the city fire department for the donation as well. So, we'll need a motion in this. I'll second it. Um Sarah, can we start with you? Sarah I Josh I Brenda I Jen I Jeff I and Lori I f the donation is accepted and now we
047are moving on to a a comprehensive achievement and civic res readiness report which I think used to be world's best report you're exactly right okay so I thought it's been the same thing honestly for like several years so I went with a shortened handout and so you have the full 40page report in the workbook but this is the gist of it and what needs to be approved tonight is we have to by law um write these five different goals in these goal areas. And so these are the new goals that we're asking to be approved. So goal one, all students ready for kindergarten. And Dan, you kind of alluded to this. Um screening went way up um from and I think Jessica kind of talked about that social the marketing person's position really helped. We
048went up from 62% of kids being three-year-olds being screened up to 81% last year. So our new goal is 83% of kids getting screened. We think that's the best way to know if kids are ready for kindergarten. Our goal two, closing achievement gap. We're centering that on our gap between special education and non special ed. Um the goal this year, um we changed the grades we're watching. So it doesn't really look it's not valid to go back and look at our goal from last year because we're going to we increased it from three through 8th grade up through 11th grade, but trying to get some growth on our special ed population around reading. And then the college and career goal is 100% of kids in the high school have a four-year plan, which we had
049100% last year. So, it's just to maintain that. And that's to make sure they're ready for whatever they want to do when they leave us. Um, you have to have a graduation goal, and that's a multi-year goal. So, right now, we're just in the middle of it. So, I don't really have um the goal didn't change. It's just to continue it. We're hoping to hit 96% in four years. And then um the last goal is the new one. Um all students will be lifelong learners. And so we gave the class of 2028 a survey last year on their growth mindset and only 20% of them showed having a growth mindset like believing that like mistakes you can learn from and some grit and perseverance. Um our progress this fall was 21% so only moved it
0501% and we're hoping to get to 60% by the time they're seniors. So we do have a little work to talk about persevering through difficulties and that kind of thing. Um, so those are the five new goals for the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness. If you want to know more on our strategies, it's in the full report. Otherwise, we need a motion to approve. Okay, just one quick questioning the thing to what do you attribute that increase in screening to um one of the big things is that marketing position. They were able to then um send direct mailings to every three-year-old in the district, which we hadn't done prior, and then um push out some more messages. So that was what they thought made the biggest jump from because it used it went from 62
051to 81. Yeah. But even a year before 62 it was 35. We've been flatlined around 30% for three years and then we went to 62 and then we went to 80. So that's awesome. Yeah. So I think that position really helped us with that. And the the first four we've seen. Yep. And they're all state like mandated. You have to make the goals in these five areas. And this what are the strategies for the lifelong learners? Part of it is in our advisement at middle school and high school to start talking about growth mindset and grit and persevering through mistakes. That's kind of the one area where all kids would get a little lesson. And then also we've talked about just like maybe dripping some strategies in with um our staff who then could just
052embed it in their classes. Like where can you talk about like that mistakes have a purpose and that's okay because some of the questions are like um if I make mistakes I don't feel like I'm good at what I do or something like that like that perfectionism thing. And it's like no to be a lifelong learner you you're going to make mistakes and that's okay and that's how you learn and you grow and and like one of the questions are like if I don't get it fast I don't think I'm learning. And it's like so just teaching them that like sometimes it's a struggle and it can be hard and that's okay. Yeah. So the state tells you what the category is. Did the state tell you how to measure it or do we choose
053how to measure? We chose So there is a committee that meets um so it has we have a parent rep from each building. We have student rep. We have two um teachers, one elementary, one secondary. And then we have um two principles, one elementary, one secondary, myself um that we sit and then we write the goals each year. So the the full report has like all the data that we looked at to then determine the goal. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you, Sarah. So yes, so we need a motion in a second to accept the um EACR report unless there's additional questions. Okay, we'll take a motion in a second. I'll make the motion. I'll second it. Say I again. Same sign. The motion passes. Thank you, Sarah. All right. So, we have some changes to
054our school year calendars and Mr. D is going to give us a few quick details on that. I assume. Yes, I'd love to. Um last year in the session, the bianium, there was legislation that came out that gave districts the authority to go ahead at the board level to make calendar changes for just two years. The 26 27 27 28 and begin the year for Labor Day. Since Labor Day is going to be later those two years, they allow districts to go ahead and move it back to September 1st or after. and trial this for two years to see how it's going to go. So with the two years that are in front of you tonight, twice of 27, we can start four days earlier than normal because again, Labor Day is later on. So
055we jump to that September 1st date and if you're four days earlier in the calendar, we're done four days earlier at the tail end. And then the next year calendar 2728 start three days early and done three days earlier in the calendar year. Typical we did in the past, we've done this with our soups council group. We've written this information to them, met it through them. That's all of our district leadership for all the unions and marketing groups in our district. We talked to our athletic director about this uh students just to get feedback overall and universally it came back with it makes sense especially for our students, especially our athletes and people that are in clubs and activities. They're already back earlier on before the school year starts anyway. So it made a lot
056of sense to look at that piece overall. So we want to go and bring that to you to have you approve that so we can get it posted for parents that are already planning a year or two ahead for their vacations and breaks with their kids so that we have that going on. Once the 2728 year is done, the legislation actually sunsets at that point. I don't know if they're going to continue that. We'll find out afterwards from the the Senate and the the House and the state level, but we'll see what happens. The other part of this too I want to let you know is that we took the opportunity to go ahead and also adjust high school quarter schedules to try to balance out the days per quarter. So we did come up
057with a proposal. We did put it in there and we are going to trail that for the next two years. One thing that I want to make you aware that we will be monitoring is that one big shift that happened is that we are going to go from having Monday professional development days in the calendar to Friday professional development days in the calendar. We did vet that through the professional development committee talked about as a group as well and the only thing I talked about is that it'll be important for us to monitor attendance um for those PD days. Um, we want to take the data we've had in the past on Mondays and assess Fridays. We'll look at that year to year and see if that has an impact because we don't want to
058lose that element when we have such good P across our district where people miss that piece as well. So, we'll look at that every year and come back report on that piece too. Brian, is this where we're moving graduation to the weekend too? Yes. This would be the start of it. Correct. Yeah, because we did the same this year for consistency. Yep. next year just so FYI because it didn't and the reason for that was uh what happened to us last year and then we looked at it and that was really the weekend no one was going to be gone no one was playing anything no one was so it's always like that weekend before that week that everybody's like in limbo anyway was it state tournament time state tournament time and section time nothing
059happens on that so we wouldn't miss any kids at that point. Any other questions about the calendar changes? If not, we need a motion and a second to accept these revised calendars for the 26 27 2728 school years. I so move. We have a motion, a second. Um, all in favor say I. I. Again, same sign. The motion passes. All right, we're moving on to roof biz. And it looks like Robin may have some updates as far as Yep. Thank you, Madam Chair. Members of the board, we have a letter here from uh Troy Thompson recommending what we have. We had six biders that came in last Wednesday. Um we have the three separate projects, one for the high school, one for the middle school, and one for primary school. We also had a combo
060bid. We only had one company that actually did the combo bid. And uh we can see that BL Dawson Dson Roofing got the high school and the middle school bid. Um, we did have a conversation with them to make sure that they could actually do that because that's two big projects as well. And they did. They said they have three crews to be able to get that done. So really, I don't know if I should say it out loud, but they're hoping they can get it done before school started. It's all going to depend on weather, obviously. Um, and then the primary school is McFillips Brothers Roofing. Um, everybody's been vetted. It came in at the whole project is 4,56,184. Of course, I took like a 5% contingency expecting we're going to have a little
061bit of that. We're at 4.7 million. So, we're still under that $4.8 to $5 million that we put out to budget. So, feeling pretty good about at least where the budget came in. We just need you, the board, to approve that and then we can go forward with that. And I'll start working on the financing part of it too and I'll keep you up on that. I'm meeting with Ellers tomorrow to start that process as well. Very good. Any questions about the move bids? If not, we'll need a motion and a second to accept the bids as presented. Okay, I'll move the bids. Okay, we have a motion. Do we have a second? I'll second. We have a motion, a second. All in favor say I. I. Again, same sign. The roof bids are accepted.
062Thanks, Robin. Welcome. We have a dental insurance rate update from Tory Becker. We haven't brought this to you guys in the past because we haven't changed our rates, but um over the last well, since I've been here, there's been a request to increase our daily maximum that is paid by the insurance companies. Um so, this year we went out to Delta Dental and just asked them to use a $2,000 quote and a $1,500 quote because our current maximum is a,000. um because the rates did change, uh we do just bring them to the board to let you guys know what the difference is. Um and so we did have to go with the $1,500 maximum because the rates the 200 max were much higher than we expected them to be. Um and so through this
063um we had mentioned some stuff at the insurance committee, but it took us a bit of time to get the quotes in from Delta Dental. Um we actually Jen and Jeff I think got them like three days before we um had them put them on our open enrollment packet. So so they've seen these um I sent it to them to let them know we were doing what the rates were but I just bring it to the board so that way you guys are aware and then any questions about the death rates? If not, we need a motion and a second to accept the new dental insurance rates. I'll make a motion to accept the new dental rates. Whether we like it or not, these are the rates. We need a second. I'll second it. All
064in favor of the new dental rates, say I. I. I. Again, same sign. Motion passes. Thank you, Cy. All right. Um, is there anything further that needs to come before the board? Don't know where this fit and I don't know who all knows it but Jodie about 20 hours ago found out that she was regional 7 a year. Now she's gonna take another step and possibly go to the state level. So just wanted to say that she just Oh exciting. Congratulations to Jody. All right. Um then we'll need a motion and a second to make a motion to second. All in favor of adjourning say I. I. Again, same sign. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you everybody. Like what is going