001e e e like toag the United States of America and the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and Justice welcome everybody all right start a motion second approve the agenda a motion second say again same motion carries we have no one signed up for open forum tonight so we'll move right on to Communications our director of Business Services we talk about enrollment and then our monthly update thank you m chair members of the board our enrollment is I'm gonna say it's kind of holding steady we're down about five from last month um so we're trying to level off that the gra trying to off that graph there so hopefully we'll hold that or keep it going up for the remainder of the year and then on our monthly report
002for February um our expenses in the general fund we're like right on budget right now um our debt service is fully paid for the year we're not can see any change there food service and community service are right at budget for similar to last year as well general fund revenues were there our food service is slightly lower in Revenue right now and then our community yet is actually quite a bit higher um with Revenue right now I just want to let you know that next month I will be bringing a revised budget for the current year that we're in this year 25 we'll bring a revised budget to the board for approval we'll be making some adjustments for enrollment um settlements that we the contracts that we've settled so far and then any other revenues
003we want to wear of um last June question thanks um we have our student our student board member time to predicate they couldn't be here tonight because they're involved in the variety show but Gabe being Gabe sent me a nice update to share so I'll quickly try to summarize um he said the stage play and jazzband are hosting the 5th annual variety show it's the next three nights at 7:00 so we said please come and join also coming is the spring play our town um that Community Ed is hosting it's April 10th 11th 12th and 13th um so he asked people to please join talked about the spring sports starting up baseball softball with cross track and field tennis and you said you're looking for something to do it's always a blast to go watch
004one of the sporting events BR would recommend I recommend all of course you and then talked about the fire band going Onre STP which I know Sarah went as well talked about the weather being perfect the attractions were magal and he just extended a thank you to the school board the administration Mrs UNAM Mr Deli and all all the other folks that went along in order for this trip to and then he said please continue having these opportunities they were awesome and then that wrapped up his update I wanted to read GES all right so we'll move on to board committee updates did anyone have any committee work that they thought should be updated for all of [Music] us I think I sent you all just now an email with this newslet they're doing kind
005of for students be a really joyful any other updates from things to cover really quick um I know there's been a lot of questions about the federal government at this point and some of the things that are happening orders and changes and potential for impacts on the Department of Education I know we've got some questions that come to us on that and the real easy answer to give is that we're serving a state of un there is things moving but there's not a lot of definition behind it so as people if you get those questions OBS come talk to one of us we're more than happy to at least try to interpret or answer but it's interesting even talking to our state legislators they're in the same L we talked about this during Bob like
006we're all waiting for what this TR and I think that waiting gonna happen for a while I don't think there'll be a lot of clarity probably quarter four of 25 here 26 so just want to throw that out there also state level two um budget targets are coming out soon obviously the budget where it's at right now or the for the state of Minnesota is not in the best place so we'll just keep working with that and seeing that uh hopefully there's some opportunities to get flexibility for school districts and really just help us out because it's going to be a tough year across the stage right now I know the numbers are different but I've heard different numbers from 300 million to5 to 600 million of cuts across the state of Minnesota in school
007district so it's it's tough SL right now so we'll just keep working and and keep moving forward at that point too on that note um we had the opportunity to invite representative Rymer to come into our schools on Friday of last week and we took him through the C program and the third floor it was just it was awesome the kids were amazed teachers did a great job to sort of just give him a walk through what it was life courses and in every classroom he kept telling kids I wish I had this P so I mean it was just really fun to see his energy and to get that appreciation for them doing some really special things in our district that don't happen anywhere else so uh nothing but CRS with him we also
008walked through the middle school a little bit uh the front entrance area specifically in the third floor and it was just a really good comp opportunity to talk about that piece with them about as we focus on some the needs we have facility wise the importance of getting this work done and he was wonderful um he's a huge fan of us just thanks everyone for the work they do and U we'll be coming around a little bit more in the future as well which I appreciate strategic planning is really going well we're already into our second and third meetings in some of our groups we've been really working really hard I'll tell you with about three of the goals number one four and five we're probably closer to the end of our journey we're getting
009some things in place that we commit to up front and we're getting ready to either implement or getting that prepared to be in the fall so they're working well appreciate the people that are coming remember those are always open to anyone that wants to come you're look probably the next two three weeks I'll have the next set of updates going out to our community on our web page I it's important to keep talking about that good message because we're doing some really good work again just enhance things we're already doing s just appreciate everyone's efforts in that big dat coming up 49 soup with the soup we're going to have an opportunity for people to break bread with myself uh um and Robin will be there as well uh so we actually have a signup
010sheet for Max Willam limited spaces so it's on the 9th of April 12 to 1:30 at the WCC Community Mee so the top the topic for this day is going to be connecting so we get to know people and their stories we also talk about bonding facilities we have the district that's for the first time looking at do it again in Main and then obviously starting to get back in the fall just another nice way to connect and make sure that people have an opportunity to to hear our story and also give some feedback in that process too uh we have attended a job there already early in this cycle and I just want to just let people know that the nice part of that even is that all their candidates in their program came
011through had an opportunity to beet with about 17 districts across the metro area and Cory was with me and it was just really nice and flattering because we had a lot of people come up and just talk about the good things they hear and they had friends that student taught here and practicums people that lived here also uh this winter Sarah and I did a presentation of the work we do of mentorship in induction in our schools so it was just really refreshing because again it they're really solid candidates but more importantly we're making an imprint on the lives of people as well I will tell you that we are seeing uptick in some of the placements are going to happen out here we have people that come in here and obviously again whenever we
012get two kids in a classroom start two kids teacher and a student that's going to college we win two adults win the classroom for us so we're excited about the opportunities to come with that piece and we have another J coming up in the next week in the metro area so we'll keep pursuing that too and then the last piece obiously this is a sobering night for the perspective that you know part of the comments I made up front about the amount of money being cut in Minnesota schools we don't get to dodge that one either we have some decisions obviously to make tonight and you it's always really hard but I just want to make sure I acknowledge the fact that again the people that were impacted have made a significant difference and impact
013on our students and we so grateful for their service and what they're going to do to finish off the year as well but um just want people to know that again it's you know it's always hard and just appreciate everyone support the process I can I just add to that a little bit there's a KSTP buyers paron bill that just came out and if you punch it it just STP it's pretty intelling kind of really laid it out verbally kind of where we are what the issues are and it's bipartisan I believe so it's kind of an interesting thing if you listen to it um I was with the CTE guys on Wednesday we have a student teacher from the University of Minnesota and that department so we do a lot of student teachers over
014years and C you guys are really excited about the visit and kind of happy that you know to show off what they do and then uh what kind of su what we what are we chent agenda which includes and accounts personel use of absences and contracts extracurricular we are going to pull out Jeff's um track shooting contract and vote on that separately um past meeting minutes so we'll need a motion in second to accept the consent agenda second we have a motion in a second any questions about it all in favor say I again same sign consent genda passes um now we'll separately take Jeff's assistant track shooting coaching contract uh we need a motion in second to approve this contract so we have a motion in the second all in favor say I against
015same sign that contract passes buiness we just have to amend our January 6 meeting minutes our resolution was okay but in the minutes we had the referendum date as April versus May so we just had to name correct so we need a motion in a second to make a correction to the January meeting make a motion to accept the amend of January 6 I'll second motion to Second any questions about that all in favor say I again same time that motion passes okay under new business they have a number of donations which are always so generous and so greatly appreciated we have the TF parents for Education group they donated to both this town and mat actic panels and the first Total was 1,4 7 and then a $3,000 donation the TF Lions Club PA
016scholarship funds of $500 St Cy Foundation gave General operating grant for $5,000 the threshing company gave to FFA $1,000 the CLP um gave Lakeside $865 and the PTO social committee gave Primary School $3,249 peasants forever boys and girls tra shooting $250 a piece and then lar gave to volleyball $1,200 so we'll need a motion and then we'll take a resolution since it's a donation but once again so greatly appreciated we have the generous Community sah Jen I Jeff I resolution passes all right we're going to move on to budget adjustments and I believe Robin's going to give us a short presentation okay so thank you madam chair members of the boards what I have for you tonight is our budget adjustments for FY 26 as you know we started this process in the fall with
017a lot of projections and assumptions um and so using those projections and assumptions we determined how much we would need to adjust our team find out there your team out there I'm going to try and stay with it here um has worked together to come up with these adjustments it's never an easy process and I give so much credit to them sorry um because no one person did this alone every single person on our executive cabinet and the board and you as board members have worked really hard on this budget we've spent many many hours to determine how we as a district can make these adjustments and still be the best District that we can for our students so we preliminar review these with our finance committee and then all of you as a full
018board and we've also shared this with the entire staff and so now I'm going to share this document one more time with all of you for approval so as we say every good District adjusts their budget annually so how did we get here we we had a loss of enrollment and we're down over 200 students since 2020 conservatively I'm going to say that's over $5.5 million lost to that drop inment when I say conservatively I didn't take the full Genet amount I just took the basic Revenue there we had a loss of Revenue and obviously it was due to that dropping enrollment but there were also other changes we have changes in funding for example compensatory we still don't know where that's going to come up with the legislature but we know we're going to
019have a reduction of some sort in our compensatory dollars we have unfunded mandate unemployment um ESS we have um which is earn safe and sick time we have the uh Paid Family Medical Leave app that are all in legislation still and we also have restricted uses of our funds which means that we can only spend them in certain ways so those are all some of those unfunded bandaids that we have that are sitting there we have negotiated settlements and we're not apologizing for those settlements um but for settling for more than we receive in funding we do know by doing that we need to adjust we have inflation 3 to 5% at a minimum increase each year and we've been told time and time again and we all know this that we all need to
020live within our me so that's what we're doing again Decades of light State funding um if we if we had if inflation had kept pace we would have we would have an additional $6 million we talk about $6 million in the 5.5 that's a lot of money that we could have in our district we're financially Equity port District or a sa District or which used be a c district and again we're adjusting because we are a good school district this is just a graph of our enrollment um that I like to show every time and you can see unfortunately we're decreasing from 2020 and that's where you can see over that 200 students it's actually 220 if you go all the way down to the 3,200 that we're using for this year the graph that
021we all seem to like right now um showing the bar graph are the adjustments that we' made over the years you can see the years we didn't make adjustments and then the line graph is where our fund balance is we ended at a little over $3 million in our um on assigned fund balance at the end of 63024 which is just a tiny bit underneath that minimum uh School Board policy which is 7 to 10% we're at about I think about 6.8% so we're just about there um the budget assumptions that we have for FY 26 enrollment projection of 200 we do know that the increase in the general education formula now is 2.74 that has come that has come down to from legislators and mde what that means for us is about 1.45 when
022we talk about 2.74 just on our general education formula the 1.45 is on our total revenue in our district and then we use the 3% average on all expenditures so then moving into um our adjustment summary um we have a combination of two positions we have some retirement savings and then based on enrollment we have some reductions of certified and non-certified staff and then the other adjustments that we have on our summary is we have some system efficiencies that we've been looking at through our copers printers building checks um a reduction in some of our summer transportation and then a decrease in our athletic training not a total cut to that but a decrease in training and so the total amount there we came to is 880 a little over $880,000 and that is all
023I have for you tonight unless there are any questions of the board any questions of the board well I can't go without making a couple comments is this a time for discussion before across the state they're making hundreds of thousands of dollars of cuts if you watch that ksdp uh message by our legislators even our legislators are finally getting I don't think I'm really speaking for the people in the room but if somebody would happen to watch this or people that are really concerned about where we are as a district I hope that you listen I don't know the big picture of this um many of the schools that we have in our state are nearing sld statutory operating debt which we would call that bankruptcy way as how it was mentioned and uh We've
024cut three million in two years and we have a 3 million unassigned fund balance so if you did the math with that 3 minus is zero we wouldn't have much of an unsigned fund balance I think I'm not like I said I'm not speaking to anybody in this room I think we're all soberly aware of where we are financially and yet as these Cuts become more these Cuts come and as they go deeper and deeper they become more and more painful I think this one is not quite as painful but I don't want to understate those that are no longer going to be with us next year that have been Faithfully working as Paras and teachers in our district and I think we've CAU approximately 15 million in 15 years somewhere along there maybe robt
025if you did that you'd probably share but that's a lot of money in in 15 years and we just seem to be on that cut cut cut cut cut those really do affect culture affect all of us and I don't I don't know a board member that hasn't really felt personal about this and certainly the principles in the in the buildings as you look at your teachers and you call them in individually that's just really a difficult thing to face and uh so I guess that we all really hope things change financially but I think for the community to they have to know that we are living within our means and we are doing what is necessary to the level that we need to cut and I don't think we're going deeper than we need
026to but is this is certainly something that we're just going to see over and over and over again and you look at the state budget they're projecting six billion dollar deficit for next year we were 17 to19 billion to the good last year so if you kind of take a look at that 18 that's $24 billion doll swing B with a billion dollar swing and hopefully we just see some changes someplace and I would just encourage people to vote for that Bond and help us out every school's finding themselves in the same situation only I think we've just been fiscally responsible and feeling with those cups as we go forward we've done what we can do we've lived within our needs any other thoughts for if not we need a motion in second to accept
027the budget adjustments for 2026 any other questions in favor of budget reduction say I I again same sign budget adjustments are accepted okay we're going to move on to our resolution for non-renewal of tier one teachers this is something we have to do year we have a number of tier one teachers in the district fing some vital positions but this is just part of the process so we need a motion in a second to nine the tier one teachers have a motion have a second no we have a resolution sorry so Sarah will you start Sarah Andor okay next we have a resolution for non-renewing long-term substitute teachers and again this is something we do up here so we need a motion and then a roll call V I'll make the motion I'll second it
028Sarah hi and next we have a resolution for nonary teachers so again this is a resolution so we need a motion a second no need a motion and a roll call vote I make a motion for the resolution for the N probationary teachers sah Jeff the last resolution is for layoffs of local um once again we a motion and then pleas that resolution passes okay we're moving on to the wild cat Academy presentation hi Sarah you y hi everybody it's a very brief presentation all right you've seen some of this before just why are we exploring online learning four main reasons why one it suits with our mission statement of learning for all and trying to reach all students two to attract and retain families who are looking for some more options we heard that
029at our strategic planning pretty loud and clear um which ties into three people and parents have been asking for this option and then lastly it's a it's a pathway that we might be able to increase some Revenue by keeping enrollment and reaching out to other families this is the timeline so how did we get here so in 2020 we actually explored offering online learning during Co did a lot of the work um decided at that point not to do it the statutes were a lot different and so in 2023 Minnesota changed their statutes govering online learning so it kind of became a time to look at it again mostly with flexibility and how to staff them and then um this fall we brought that to the board to talk about like maybe do you want
030us to explore it then in January we checked in again do you want me to continue to explore it it was yes and so now we're here today in March and um today the day to ask if it you would approve opening an online high school next year Wildcat Academy High School grades 9 through 12 for fall of 25 um so what has changed since 2020 is the statute change so there's more um Staffing licensing requirements have opened up and you also don't have to go through the entire approval process with the state any Minnesota public high school can offer online learning full-time to students so you don't have to go through all the the application process again um we see a reason why we talked about enrollment declining um the high school's down 40
031students since the fall of 2019 just when you look at the enrollment and I showed you those patterns the last time we talked about it but we have 99 students who are specifically not with us fulltime or at all because they're going completely online right now um that does not include homeschool families that's just fames choosing online since we talked last time I surveyed so I just wanted to show you the survey results we did three different surveys we surveyed online families so the 90 who have left we surveyed homeschool families in grades um 8th through 11th like potentially like who would be coming in and then we serve our served our surveyed our own 8th through 11th grade families and out of those survey results um what we found is 357 families responded 83
032said definitely yes we would be interested in enrolling full-time with an online program um so that's a combination across the three surveys we were just doing some rough predictions so if 50% of those families actually sign up and enroll we would have about 40 students and we're looking to cap it around 30 anyways to start small and make sure we do the program right so we do think we have interest there to offer it so this is the request um to open Wildcat Academy High School for grades 9 through 12 in the fall our Target enrollment is a minimum of 20 to make it go but we'd also be looking at capping it around 28 to 32 primarily to even out grades you can limit and say this many freshmen this many sophomores to try
033to balance the grades as well so that's where we come up with a 32 roughly eight students per grade band but we have some flexibility with that and then the second request is to post a position for a wildcat Academy coordinator so this would be somebody who's responsible for the daily oversight of the online programming checking students grades putting in their scores um providing support to students if they need it you know in that's inperson support and virtual support and that position would report to me um the director of teaching lastly um that I not lastly there's another slide um budget just for year one so roughly Staffing um this is a few positions Incorporated in that number so the coordinator plus potentially a little FTE for like special ed services or counseling services or
034you like so who is going to have to provide support depending on what we get for student enrollment curriculum to provide the online curriculum is about 15,000 just for Wildcat Academy per year and then the other is not sure what we'll need you know like some maybe curriculum writing hours administrative supports mailings you know just kind of that administrative size so roughly we're looking at um an expense of $175,000 a year one if we get 20 students they would roughly provide you the 200,000 and so we still would be at a a gain if we get to the 32 students the gain would be higher roughly at $45,000 plus and we've talked about like we maybe hold that year one to like help determine like how to build the program do we want to go
035bigger or not but eventually that does become a little bit of Revenue that the district could use districtwide then too then if you approve it our plan is tomorrow Michelle and I to meet and we will be you know writing a articles to the newspapers we've got some emails that we would generate to send out to our families announcing that we would be doing this um also all the online families and homeschool families we can directly email them back and say thank you for filling out the survey we're excited to announce that we would be opening this option for your families we can um do some social media posts and also we have a website that would launch by end of day tomorrow so at that point I'll just have questions yes this may be
036a long and shortterm question but how does our existing Wildcat Academy in like the skinnies work with this it's separate they'll both use the same platform but basically that that's still an option for our kids who need it in the school to begin with they'll be fulltime we have those skinnies that are taught at the high school and they'll continue for next year you have well done you've probably created more potential to serve than what you have spaces so to me it seems like the obvious question would be how do you choose oh you have to there's statute on how you do the lottery so April 15th the lottery will open so families we have an application that'll go up on the website tomorrow it that it won't be open it'll explain what they can
037do on April 15th where they basically fill out a form in like saying my child is interested what grades their names their birthday that puts them into a spreadsheet and then you have to use a random generator to draw and select those students however there is some statute that if it's a district employee they get preference and once you draw a student one student if they have a sibling signed up that sibling also gets to enroll so that's basically how you do it it's a random generator then at that point when we're going to close the application on May 2nd we'll notify families on May 5th that they've been selected to for enrollment they will get a whole enrollment packet they have basically a week to confirm that they're going to enroll To Us by
038May 16th and then they will actually sign up for courses and everything by May 30th that way if we do have special education services we have to make sure that we're meeting those statute requirements before school starts in the fall so you've got it kind of all timelined out and everything will be ready on the website when they go to sign up is there anyone on the for where it says if they're coming from online or they're coming from home school or if they're within our i' just be curious and you I don't think we can we can okay we can yeah and you have to like you can't ask if they have special education basically you have to ask name grade birth date that point though you're going to have a pretty good idea
039if it's 80 that sign up or 83 or 41 and a half or where you are with your 50 of 83 a pretty good idea maybe planning obviously future we did ask on one of the survey questions if we offered supplemental enrollment how interested would you be in that and I can pull it up but I think it was like high like 50% shut up saying just to get a Clarity on that these comprehensive needs are all at your taking courses in the program you're a full-time student there supplemental mean there was an opportunity to take a class or two and still go back and forth in the high school as we mentioned before we want our comprehensive to the simple fact that one we build a man piece and two the suppl open up
040a full quor that we're not ready for at this point but to your point if do on top of the numbers when I did look at the surveys it it was extremely high for that 50% gave us out of a Liker scale of four to five How likely would it be for your child to take one or two classes online while still being enrolled at the high school 50% said gave it a four or five unlik and we talked about all kinds of scenarios of people taking partial or full or whatever in those skinnies at the high school you know how many people would take that up I think it's obviously a great potential as we try to maybe make some positions holding the high school and meet the needs of individual course work that
041might K might want to get and including is there any higher like higher B things on there higher yeah like pre- and all that I mean we didn't we pre- Kel is probably about the highest we went we did not do any college level classes um we would primarily have our kids referred to go to the high school to take those College LEL classes that' be a really great opportunity for people to get some Advanced course things to enrollment or it would be our it's a licensing issue right now to like what you can do so you'd have to have the accreditation to teach those classes any other questions about the wild Academy for Sarah well I had a question to the the teacher coordinator position and just going back to the licing um and
042the qualifications that we're looking for this person um not knowing much about it um like how does what does the LIC look like for that person you could be a licensed teacher and then there's a license called ccdp I can't remember cross categorical delivery permissions is that what it is yeah it's really good it's a new license poliy put out now so if you are a tier three or tier four teacher you get that license and you can teach any subject matter that Minnesota standards are tied to so they would be allowed to oversee all those classes that's a recent change and that was a barrier before for schools that's why I think they've been sort of really picking up theme I think we showed you numbers before about just been spiking that's one reason
043didn't change that have to really facilitate a number of people to make other questions I just want to say good job s a lot lot of help lot of okay good job everybody yeah there you go thank you Sarah so we need two separate votes first we need to vote to approve the Wildcat Academy starting in the fall and then we need for the teaching position so first we'll take a m second to start theam I'll make motion to start other questions all in favor say I I I that motion passes now we need a motion in second to add the teacher coordinator position Madam chair I make a motion to make that teacher coordinator position posted have a second any other questions about the position if not all in favor say I I against
044same sign that motion passes thanks Sarah we appreciate it very much y okay the last thing on our agenda is we don't need to vote but we do need to discuss the that our review and comment was accepted yeah just really briefly so again obviously part of the process for any type of bond um for facility piece that you're looking to do in the district there is a requirement by stat to submit a report to the Department of Education Minnesota a certain amount of days before we followed that process and fortunately enough right around the middle of March we did receive it back for the positive response review from Department education so just want to let you know that's um here in front of you um that was uh posted in the paper for two
045weeks our oblation only one we put it in for last week and this week so we've met that requirement and just about the fact that again we felt very confident putting them that it was going to be approved and it thank you any questions about the review and comment document you read every detail it your just just for people in you're watching it's on our B website it's also on our website as well specifically okay perfect if there's nothing further we need a motion in second to thank you everybody I