April 22, 2025 at 6:30 PM - Regular School Board Meeting

001Excellent. Good afternoon and welcome to the April Duth Public School regular school board me. We are glad to have you all here today. I'm going to turn it over to Clerk Micel to do roll call. Member Banks here. Chair Derek Eer present. Member Laughler Kemp here. Member Loel here. Member Mike Selis here. Uh member Saddowski here. Member Williams here. Superintendent Maggus present. Assistant Superintendent Bonds present. Deputy clerk Zunich present. Executive director of HR and operation severance present. Secretary Pquette here. Uh student representative uh Garn is excused. Uh, student representative Taylor is excused and student representative Dean present. Thank you. Now that we've completed the roll call, we can stand if you're willing to do the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which

002it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And now we will move forward with the approval of the agenda. So moved. We have um I'm we have what a motion. Thank you from member Lald. We're looking for a second. Second. Member Micasel. Second it. Um do we have any discussion? All those in favor please say I of approving the agenda. I oppose. Nay. Motion carries. Next, we'll move on to school and community recognition. And I'd like to turn it over to Assistant Superintendent Bonds. Well, that's another tough um act to follow. Superintendent Maggus, it's been a great meeting. We had the Sterling Strings and then we had Denfeld boys basketball. It's just been a smiley meeting. So, at this point in our meeting, I'll turn it over to

003the report of the superintendent for um Superintendent Maggus. Thank you. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Um so, for our superintendent report today, we have uh of course we all share our our mission, our vision, and our values. Our mission is that every student every day will be empowered with learning opportunities for growth, creativity, and curiosity and preparation for their future in a global community. Our vision is that Duth Public Schools provides an academically engaging, safe, and inclusive environment with high expectations and responsible use of resources. And our core values are learning, excellence, equity, collaboration, and belonging. Our topics for tonight, we have our student reports from our student representatives. Uh we have a few people who are were unable to attend, but we have a report from uh Kate Dean, our east representative.

004And then we have uh some conversation on some recognition days talking a little bit about budget reduction and realignments uh and some legislative updates. But I we always start with the say do the the best part first and start with our student reports. So, uh, Representative Dean, are you ready? All right. Good evening. I am excited to share that at each and every student forum meeting there is better and better attendance with I think around 80 kids coming on our last pause day, which is very exciting. Um, I will be hosting two meetings during the day tomorrow and I'll make sure to base some of the questions I ask on things that we discuss here tonight. Today, both the climate club and the Key Club are holding Earth Day events. Many members of climate club

005and other students participated in today's rally in March. Recently, the climate club received a $1,500 grant to further their composting project, and they'll be taking a field trip soon to help plant 1,000 trees. It's definitely one of our very, very involved groups. Um this weekend on Sunday, a handful of East students will be competing at the State History Day competition in the Twin Cities. East has a really strong record of successes with that with multiple awards every year and national qualifiers. So, I'm very excited to hear about those results. Track is East's largest spring sport, and the season is in full swing with a meet coming up this Friday. Boys tennis, baseball, softball, and boys and girls lacrosse have also been staying very busy. Speaking of girls lacrosse, East Student Government is excited to be

006or uh hosting a parking lot tailgate prior to the May 19th Sophie's Squad game. Sophie's Squad is an organization named after Sophie Wland, a 14-year-old athlete who committed suicide in 2021. The organization works to raise awareness around mental health, especially for young athletes. The girls lacrosse team made up of both both East and Denfeld players will be partnering with them on May 19th and we're excited for the events, activities, and fundraising all connected to this game. In connection to mental health awareness, students all around the district have been participating in an ice bucket challenge per uh which has been sponsored by the University of South Carolina's mind club. This is maybe seeming a little random, but I think that it's really relevant within our district just because of the huge number of students participating. The

007goal of this challenge is to reduce stigma around conversations about mental health. And I've seen, I'd say the majority of the people that I follow on Instagram get buckets of water dumped on their head. I've personally seen this challenge take over social media with friends from New York City, Virginia State, California, Wisconsin, the Twin Cities, and all around Duth, Carlton, and Hermantown all participating. This just goes to show that stu students need strong and clear access to the destigmatization and mental health resources. So, in connection to mental health, I definitely notice and feel the effects of getting so close to the end of the year. With our seven period schedule and few opportunities to catch up, many students feel as if they're drowning in work. That coupled with the yearly spring fever makes for patterns

008of high stress and low focus. I've had multiple questions from students about our schedule for next year that I haven't necessarily been able to answer. So, I'd love to hear some updates about where you're at in that decision-making process and what sort of student feedback you've taken into account. It's really exciting for me to receive questions about decisions that are being made and how those decisions were reached. And with that, this is my obligatory reminder and encouragement to keep students in the loop. Often, we don't find out about something until the decision has already been settled on, which means that it's too late for you to consider our voices. And then with that said, I'd like to share um some about what students really do and want more information on. At our last student forum

009meeting, students had conversations about a variety of issues, including what they feel are the biggest issues around student safety, what they'd like to see from a studentwide city or citywide student council, how much um information they feel that they gained from the district digest, specific things that they've struggled with and are looking forward to, and discussions they'd like to have in future student forum meetings. and with that also what I can do to better communicate to and from students. As always, I have so many more details about every single one of these topics and I'd love it if you ask me for more, but I won't suck up all of our time. So, thank you. Thank you, Representative Dean. So, um I also want to let you know and remind you and also um the

010board that on Wednesday, May 7th in Fergus Falls, there is a student school board representative conference and we would be glad to help sponsor that. I know uh Chair Durk Eater and I have talked about what we might be able to do to uh help provide uh or assist with transportation or things of that nature. Uh I've also been working with uh with director uh Larva on um our plan for how we can best support uh the the uh kickoff and the formation and the development of that student representative intracity student council and uh actually was speaking with uh some an outside group that that does a lot of work with facilitation of getting that type of thing uh off the ground. Shakapi is a district that has a really robust student leadership group and

011they uh kicked off theirs by using uh this group. So I think that there are variety of things that we want to do. Um I think that that during the school year we were pretty busy with some of the budget reduction aspects and I think that that turning our attention to make sure that we have robust support for the student leadership and student voices so that we can have things well in place for next year and uh begin things this year will be very important to us. So just wanted to say thanks for that. Um and then thinking about recognitions recognition uh we have very many many different days but since there are two that are very close one is today. Today is school bus driver appreciation day and we are so grateful for the

012work of our transportation professionals. Not only do they provide a safe and reliable service getting our students to and from uh school every day, they often are the first and last smile that they see from our staff every day. And uh my my father was a bus driver. I know I've said that a couple of times, but uh when I talked about how difficult classroom management was, he always said, "Well, John, try doing it when you're driving down the road at 55 miles an hour." So, uh I think that there's a lot to bus driving. There's a lot to getting our students to and from to the routing to the bus helpers to every the mechanics. Uh we look across and you can see our transportation building over there and there's a lot of hard

013work that goes in there to support our kids. And tomorrow is administrative professionals appreciation day. And we're deeply appreciative of everything that our school secretaries, executive assistants, and other clerical colleagues do each and every day to support our students, staff, and families. And I'd like to give a special thanks to executive assistant uh Patty Pquette who is um not only serves as executive assistant to me as superintendent but is also the uh the secretary and executive assistant to the board. And so we just want to say thank you uh to you as well. Now, uh talking about some of the things that uh we've we've been we've we've had a lot of conversation about uh budget reduction and realignment and we've heard about some of the impacts of some of the reductions. So, I thought

014it would be good during my superintendence report to kind of uh walk through where we've been uh and with the the budget reduction process, what what um frameworks we've used for that, as well as to talk about um some of the changes and things that we've looked at related to the u music programming since that that was a topic that I knew was going to be very uh front and center for us. But as we heard as well, uh it's not just music that that people are concerned about. We've had uh very very significant reductions in another in in a variety of areas. Um so just as far as the process that we've had in this this past summer, uh the board directed administration to develop an inclusive process to create a comprehensive list of

015reductions uh rather than create a menu of individual reductions for the board to choose from because that was that was a difficult thing. we we could have come with uh you know a list of a hundred things that could be reduced and and with the costs and and then figure out as a board where we wanted to make those reductions. Uh but at that point the board uh wanted us to come forward as an administrative team working with uh stakeholders and bring forward a a comprehensive list. As part of that process, the board worked very closely with us uh with the administration to create our budget reduction and realignment guiding change document. I've linked that before quite a few times. I didn't link it in today, but I'd be glad to share it if anybody

016would like to see, which then uh went through board approval. And then the administration, we used uh that guiding change document as well as our educational leadership system uh framework and other processes to listen to stakeholder feedback and create a list of our budget reductions. And it's it has not been easy for us. None of these reductions are easy. And I think that um as we hear there are oftentimes competing needs and competing interests and it's it's a very very difficult process but we're trying to do our best and again uh because of the the state situation with our budgets uh and because of the reduction in federal aid and um the difference between what we receive each each year compared to the cost of education going up. We like many other districts are having

017to make a significant course correction of about 7.6 6 million. I'd also like to remind the public that had our referendum passed, uh, we would have had better funding for technology, which would have resulted in $2 million less reduction than we're making making now. So, that that has had pretty significant impact, too. So, we're in a challenging place and we're making challenging decisions, but just wanted to lay out what how is it that we're we're doing so. So, that uh well, actually, I didn't need to link my the the guiding change because it's right there. Um, but really a lot of what we talked about is is why do we need to make the reduction? What are the things that we're going to avoid doing? And like we're not going to break any laws. We

018can't break contract. We can't go into stat statutory operating debt. And we need to make sure that we have um databased and and uh stakeholderbased decision. Uh but but that we would be the ones that would come forward with those decisions. And then as far as what it was that we're seeking to do, we need to have a balanced budget. That was the the top priority, but we also wanted to make sure we had a transparent process and that uh really that we were focused on prioritizing classroom needs as much as possible. And the way that we consider classroom needs, it it all varies. You can consider many things classroom re need. Uh but in in many respects we are hearing a lot about uh class size uh particularly because many of our classes are

019at 35 to 40 on average not not as just an anomaly but some of our classes many of our classes at East are at at 35 or more. Same with Ordine. And so uh making sure that we weren't just taking it out of class size was something that was important. Uh we also talked about making sure that we're aligning to our uh priorities of supporting every student, advancing equity, and improving systems and that we would continue to examine all of our processes to seek efficiencies. So when I said that we one of the documents we used was the educational leadership system, this is this is one of the the frameworks in the way that we look at our district. Uh really we try and focus and our strategic roadmap f focuses on what are the

020desired daily experiences of our students, staff and families. And really there is um a group of people the board included as well as administration which includes district administration and uh the the principal uh group um that that is focused on what is what are the district interests, right? Because stakeholders there there are many many stakeholders who have varied opinions. We want to listen to that stakeholder input but really it's up to the management team to come up with what are the recommendations based on that that input and then it's up to the board as a governance body to decide how it is that they want to make decisions based on those recommendations coming forward. So those are the different areas. So again we work uh using stakeholder voice and then our design teams working together.

021We we uh met with our principles from the various levels and uh then the directors working with those principles as well as working with uh the the u administration here at district office. We came forward with recommendations based on what the principles uh felt was important based on our input working together with us and we did uh we did change some things too like for instance uh we've we've we um with music for instance we uh there was a initially we were looking at the possibility of having a reduction of all support for um the individual lessons in small group but we wanted to we decided that that wasn't what we wanted to do. So we added back the half that we did. So we had we recommended moving forward with the pull out model

022which still maintains some of the support. We realized that is not as good. Same with with library media specialists. There was a there was a situation where we looked at reducing library media specialists down to halfime at the high school and not having additional support at the high school to keep the libraries open. We listened to the feedback and we added added back there. So it's in some ways it's it's been a a situation where we've had we built shared understanding with stakeholder uh voice and then the decision makers who are the people closest to the work the principles their voices were weighed very seriously in what we considered as we move forward but ultimately it was we needed to look at it from a uh district position as well in our recommendations to the

023board. So again, we reduced our budget and we're reducing our budget by $7.6 million and it has not been easy. We recognize that no matter what is reduced, it will have negative impacts. Negative impacts on our students, negative impacts on our staff and negative impacts on our families. None of the reductions are things that we want to do, but they represent that what we from an administrative perspective at least at this point agree that are are seen as the what what I say sometimes are the least worst options. It's hard to talk about reductions in in services for children as being good options. It's really about what is the least worst option that we can bring forward given our financial realities. I would say that if at this point if there are any decisions to

024add FTE back into the budget for various things, I would highly recommend that at this point we take it out of our assigned fund balance for next year as opposed to trying to seek other uh staffing reductions because the uh displacement notifications and and things of that nature, they've already gone out. And so finding other like finding other people or positions to reduce at this point I think would be um too challenging on the system. And so if we are looking at adding anything back for anything in particular I would suggest that we we take it out of assigned fund balance and then find additional reductions in in the coming year that would mean that we will potentially miss our target uh for what we hoped with the 7.6 million. we would miss it by

025a bit depending on what was added, but that was is what we as a team would recommend if we're we're going from there. I know that there's been thoughts about other things that could be reduced and it's it's hard sometimes because of the point at what we're where we're at. It's it's approaching the end of of April. So, so I think that that's where we're we're at with uh staffing reductions or staffing uh displacement at this point. Uh, and as I mentioned, both media specialists and middle school supports were recommended as part of the the comprehensive budget reduction plan. And those were both things that were reduced completely prior to me being here. I know that there was uh some some uh statements about how we reduced it uh after CO but actually those reduction

026and I'm not trying to blame previous administrations or previous people in in budget decision-m but those those were reduced prior to us being here and then we added them back because we had additional uh COVID money during that time and we hoped of course that we would be able to continue maintaining those but at this point they were they were identified um in the and but then modified as I mentioned. So we added some back based on on on input but what does it look like and we heard about it uh to some degree but basically the district would plan is planning to shift from a co-eing model where we have two certified teachers in each class period. It's an expensive model uh and sometimes people have said it does create some confusion sometimes for

027staff and students. The end result would be that there will be one music instructor for each class period which then would provide um potentially more more cohesive instruction. That was something that was u put together through the um the um curriculum department. Then uh we would have music lessons. We would still have support for music lessons. It would be about half of the FTE that we have currently. But that would be uh both for some team teaching within the classroom but also for some uh pull out of individual or group lessons and um director Larva can also share in additional detail if need be. We did ask our our middle school principles if they were available but they had family commitment. So um we can speak on behalf of that. We're also seeking community partnership.

028So we're we're seeking to have additional partnership with community and thinking about how we can better support the students uh given given the reductions that we have. Um but that is our our recommendation at this point. Uh the programming as I mentioned we'll have uh each band and orchestra orchestra class will have a designated teacher of record responsible for the instruction and management of the class and supplemental teacher support would be through combination of in-class assistance which would be pushin team teaching like uh but then there would also be quite a bit of uh pull out and and um small group uh small group or individual lessons. Now, when I say quite a bit, what I'm what I meant is that there would be we can't guarantee that this is going to be anywhere near

029what we have for the team teaching we have now. It's admittedly it's it's a significant reduction in support. Um, but that we would uh hope to provide those those pull out lessons. We would provide those pull-up lessons for individual and small group. So, that is uh kind of where we let me just go back one. So that that is really where we are with what we've we've proposed and um what we're we're looking at doing and what we've done related to our displacements at this point. Um but if we were making any changes, we would need to we would need to consider that, but it would be too late to look at reductions in other staff to make that happen. We would have to look through other efficiencies. Uh you know, I think that that

030that would be something that we'd need to consider at that point. Um, as far as other topics, uh, we legislative updates, we continue to lobby very hard for additional funding. We're looking for, uh, funding increases in a variety of areas, including funding for our DUTH promise efforts, as well as our special education funding anomaly, which would put money back into the general accounts. Uh, we we also there's there are a lot of question marks related to to both state and federal funding right now. That's that's part of the reason why even though we're doing very painful reduction in belt tightening, it's partly because we want to make make sure that we're prepared in case of of uh difficult or even more difficult times. When we hear things uh people talking about eliminating funding for Head

031Start and eliminating, you know, doing things as far as significant impact in title budgets and things of that nature, we we need to see too what does that entail. Um, we also recognize related to pension reform, that's that's a a new topic that we haven't talked a lot with the board. Um, but it's a it's a emerging significant statewide issue. Uh there's there's a rule called the rule of 90 which is basically a combination of somebody working 30 years and reaching the the age of 60 at which time they they uh can retire with with very significant uh basic their their pension at that time is is fully funded and it's very robust. The what we're seeing now is the people that that um that graduated from college with four-year degree and started in teaching

032that group is reaching the end of their ability to use the root rule of 90. So other people who have graduated after people who started in education 30 years ago will not be able to take advantage of some of those um some of those pieces. And so so basically they will not want to retire. they they will well they might want to retire but they might not be able to choose retirement because the financial finances of it will not be locked in place until uh later because of uh social security and things of that nature. So basically, and I can go into it in greater detail at at uh the board's uh interest, but uh basically it will will end up hanging on to more experienced teachers later into their career, which is a positive,

033but it also means that those teachers often times the the uh salary might be 30,000 more than somebody who's starting. And so teachers are going to or school districts are going to accumulate large numbers of very experienced and and fortunately for them hard for us costly uh teachers. And so the uh duth education Minnesota and our duth federation of teachers they are very much in favor of of pension reform and we've worked together with our our u with the DFT to um sign a sign a joint letter related to pension reform. And so we're going to be continuing to lobby on those efforts as well. So those are some of our legislative updates. And um just wanted to say if there's any questions or comments, feel free to ask. Member Saddowski, I am just curious

034to learn more about the community partnerships aspect that you mentioned. wondering about um maybe different community partners that you've reached out to also wondering um you know who would have capacity to do that in a in a strong way. And actually uh director larva if you could come up and share as well. Um so basically we have started some of the conversations related to the uh partnerships and we've done some very light uh initial conversations and had a meeting on Friday but uh there's certainly a lot left to do but if you could address that director larva. Yeah. The mics seem really low but bring it closer to your mouth. Pull it [Music] testing one too. Sure. I'm taking the mic away from John. Um yes, we just recently have started having some conversations with

035a couple of community members that had reached out to us. um some of the concerns um were not just about middle school but um overall um partnering even down at the elementary level. And so, you know, we just started having the conversations. We started talking about potentially offering some artists and residencies or different ways that we could maybe do some grant funding to try to um even reach out a little bit and get some some beginning stages even even down to elementary. Um, one of the things that, um, we also talked about is that, um, you know, we have a curriculum committee. Well, we have curriculum committees set up for our content areas. And so, I've already spoken with our curriculum coordinator about um, reaching out to our content specialists at the elementary level and

036at the secondary level. So, the lift doesn't necessarily need to be on a person, member Sidowski. could be on a committee which is a shared kind of lift. Um so the elementary music or the secondary music committee could start establishing more partnerships. Um we do often um try to reach out to communities when we're doing um curriculum adoptions. It's part of our process in our in our handbook about curriculum adoptions. Um, so we do want representation from the experts that are in science, the experts in social, the experts in music. And so just having that partnership even at that curricular level committee when we're meeting four times a year would be um a starting point. And so we did have a conversation around um making sure that that's actually happening. Thank you. I think um

037yeah, you can keep that. You can stay here. you can stay here as long. Yeah, thanks. Um, no, but I also wanted to point out that um in meeting with some of our our uh stakeholders in the community, they talked about um how we didn't really it wasn't really foreseen how the the impacts would happen if the if the referendum didn't pass. um that we of course they they knew that there would be impact, but I think a lot of people saw it as just a technology referendum. Even though during many many of our meetings we did talk about how if the technology referendum passed, that would save about $2 million per year out of our general budget that could be that we we would need to cut if we didn't or reduce by if

038we didn't um pass the referendum. So I think there from from that that conversation there was also a a thought about if we have another referendum cycle what could it look like to have more robust support for music? How could we rebuild and build build back better in many ways with with our music programming and arts programming because it's something that the community definitely feels strongly about. So that was something that we talked about. Member Laughler Kim. Yep. Thank you. Um thanks for that question. member Saddowski, I had asked that a a few weeks back about when the idea of partnerships were being floated and I know partnerships take time. Um grant uh writing takes time and uh so you know I if that's a route we're going to go then we need to put

039a lot of energy into it right away. Um I guess I have a question about registration at the middle school and high school for next year. Do we have registration numbers uh for our music programs uh at the middle school and high school? And a second part to that question is are there other classes that uh the numbers were so low we're not offering um u maybe elective c classes that there might be some money from as well. So it's an interesting balancing act at the middle school. Um kids don't have electives per se. I mean there's some classes that they have choice in, but when you think about like um our arts standard, they have more that they are required to choose from. And so those are some of our our things. So kids

040have to be in something. There's no study halls at the middle school. We have to have FTE to cover all the kids everywhere. That being said, um we have had more students this year choosing music over instead of maybe visual arts or media arts. So, it's just a it's just a a balancing act, you know, of where the kids interests are at that given moment. So, um we know when we are making those reductions, we're basing it off of current year numbers of um courses that are being offered the FTE, we actually are going to be having to add more at um Ordin East just due to student registration numbers as well. So, that that just is kind of a balance that has happens every year. So, it just depends upon how many kids are

041interested in one of their classes over another. Um, I have not heard of any impacts at the high school with music. I did not I I have not been updated or anything on that. So, so at least at our dean, we have a strong interest in music from our students and we know that when they start out in sixth grade and seventh grade, they're likely to stay in music if they have a good experience. And our students and our families are saying they want music. Yeah. And and um also just to be aware um when we were doing our middle school model, one of the questions that came up was was how are we going to have music handled at sixth grade? You know, um we could have just said it was an optional thing

042that kids could take. Um but we we actually wanted to make that investment at sixth grade for performing music. Um so in sixth grade they do have to choose between choir, band, and orchestra. Um, we don't have general music offered at the sixth grade level. They can't take that opt out of performance music until they hit seventh and eighth grade. I'm aware of that. Yeah. Um, and then are you saying that at the high school level um that we don't have registration numbers yet to know if any classes have had to be dropped because the numbers were low? We do have registration numbers and I'm just not well verssed in how it impacts in music right now. I do know of some other areas where we've had to have some shifts. Um, but I'm not

043um I'm not versed in where that stood with music. I hadn't heard anything that stood out. I mean, it's not on my radar, I guess I should say. I I hope we can get some information on that soon. Yep. I can provide that for you if you want. We sure can. And also the high schools did identify some of their reduction through elimination of small class sizes too or small not small class sizes but small or low enrollment courses. And so I don't remember the the total for the the high schools but there was several hundred,000 that was looked at for reduction based on on low class sizes. So I I want to say $200,000 roughly. Yeah. Yeah. For So, so basically the the sites already looked at finding $200,000 and having that be part

044of meeting their target. Uh the reason they they did have interest in going deeper there. Uh but that would also impact um that would impact class size too. So if we have right now we have in for example in most of our geometry classes they're over 35 on average for our students. we were hesitant to want to reduce further there even though sometimes students go on to the ALC or other places because we we wanted to make sure that especially for those core classes that we were avoiding uh running the the rates up higher than 35 per teacher. I would say that one area where we have seen some decline in um registration would be in our world language area. um some there's some less interest in that but we also are seeing that our

045ASL program is um expand I mean there's a lot of interest in that ASL program for kids too so again a balancing act um but that is one of the areas where we are we are noticing that there's some decline in enrollment or registration thank you member [Music] Loeld okay yeah thank you. Well, you Yeah. Okay. So, I uh Thank you. Thanks. And thanks for the information and for clarification, too. So, as someone who's worked in the district and then have a daughter that daughter-in-law that's teaching music at Denfeld, I know that there's community partnerships already happening. Yes, it we we need to continue it. There needs to be more. talking to even parents that were here tonight, you know, there's some real renewed energy in, you know, being committed to community partnerships, but we

046have many of them. We've had many of them for years, even when I was still in the classroom of um arts organizations. We've had artists and residents. We've had um music specialists come in. We've had band um pullouts where, you know, a a traveling band instructor has come for a week of um work with our students. So there's some of that needs to be more and if that's something as part of the journey to where we're going, I I'm confident that we have community partners and I'm more um suggesting that there is a committee and that the need to continue to build partnerships isn't isn't labored on to the current music teachers we have that it is happening on the curriculum level and from other areas. But um just yes, we do have grants being

047written and we do have community partners and I'm so appreciative of the teachers and the community that has supported that, but it needs to be more robust. I'm really interested in helping the new create the the new model of the FTEEs we're appointing to middle school band and orchestra be um allowed some flexibility in how they want to use their hours. I don't if if pull out isn't working and a pull in can be more manageable and you you give the teachers in those positions the ability to work that.5 to their to what they feel their kids need and it might be a little bit flexible until they see what their enrollment is and what the needs of the student is. And so I I would hope that that would be something um that you

048could consider doing. And again, um my my other concern and caution to board members is that we we have cuts in in some significant areas and we've heard from um other community members and staff coming before us and um it is a a very hard place to be in. We haven't been in this position as a board together for my tenure on the board because we shortly after I came on the board, we entered into COVID and we were robust with some extra money and I've always said in my heart of hearts what we got during COVID is what we should have had the last 20 plus years that I've been in education. So, um, there's just multiple reasons why we're at this budget cutting place and it's painful and I am appreciative of all

049of your dialogue and your questions and the information you can provide us. But there are other community groups that have come before us. And then there are some cuts we're making that um the voices aren't coming here because their needs are significant and their ability to come and share isn't as as easy for them and and somewhat maybe the communication hasn't always trickled down to where they need to be. So I I do caution us as we look at how we can potentially maybe use some extra money if we have some reduction in a position somewhere else. And um and again I think I appreciate our CFO um Zunich for always reminding us that we are able to make some shifts and some um some looking at different things because at the state level and

050the federal level you know we might not you know be be as you know we might not have the money we need for even some of our other programs we currently haven't um taken to a a reduction or a realignment. So those are just my um overall comments. I'm I'm really interested in in staying communicative and um asking good questions and listening to each other and being supportive of of sometimes disagreement here as we work towards these um decisions. So, thank you. And I just want to take a minute. I'm sorry, member Laughler camp. I didn't if you had further questions. I was just in mode. So, if the I I'll bring them up where I can. All right. My apologies. I didn't mean to do that. Um, next I believe we have member Saddowski.

051Yeah, I just had a follow-up question for you, um, Director Larva about the you made a comment about, um, getting experts in music involved in some of our decision- making. Uh, is that what you kind of had mentioned with the artist and residency and the grants? Um, yeah, using using our community members as part of our committee, like being active members would be able to help bring that expert point of view into it, right? Um, I'm just curious how I mean, have we used any experts in our community up until this point um for some of the decisions that some of the analysis of where we are today as far as with our budget reductions and reallocations? Um, no, we did not. Okay. And then, um, let's see. lot to say here. I just wanted

052to appreciate uh Superintendent Magus very appreciative of you bringing up the guiding change document and uh member Loeld for your words. These are very uh challenging times and these are very hard decisions. Um and I also appreciated um Superintendent Magus you stating the least worst option. They're all bad options. So I appreciated you saying that. I do have I also wanted to just say I have some concern about some of the language in the in this um report um specifically around adding flexibility or potential flexibility and cohesive instruction because that's just not what we're hearing from our experts in our music um area and these are really hard decisions. And so, um, just my opinion, I think we need to, um, call a spade a spade because it's going to take away, uh, flexibility and

053cohesion in the music program. And maybe I'm not sure if there's anything you wanted to add about where that even though we should probably have worded it differently, is there anything that you wanted to say about why why that was worded that way? Um, I guess when we're talking about the flexibility, we're talking about like being able to um, as we're posting for um, our positions to help and support that, we we would like to make sure that the people that are in these roles um, can um, work with the teacher of record and just be able to be like um, if the if the supplemental teacher is more of an expert on maybe working with violinists, maybe they're leading something in that aspect. factor, you know, just having that flexibility and being able to

054work through um their professional learning communities and really targeting down to like what kids need to be pulled, what small groups might need to be pulled. Um so when I say like the flexibility, we're we don't want to get pigeonholed into something where um we can't offer some flexibility there for them. Um, and as far as the cohesion goes, I think I think there's just been some challenges with with some of the like you heard from from some of the Ordin East community regarding some of the programs that have happened this year. And I know that um um our um sorry, my phone is ringing in my ear. Um so I know that our um our orchestra program there was some there was some challenges this year. we did have a teacher that retired and

055so just trying to reestablish like who was the teacher this year was very important at some point in time. So when we talk about that it was just really like who is the the teacher of record and maybe some of our language around co-eing is is um more challenging when like who is actually the teacher in that course and so we're trying to make sure that that's clearly established when we talk about the cohesion. With that said, I I do agree that that sometimes you read something on paper and then when you read it aloud, it sounds different than than it did when it was in the statement. And I think that it would um sometimes things are unnecessarily inflammatory and we didn't didn't intend it that way. We're just trying to make sure that

056we we shared that as well. But I agree. I also um when I talked about the reductions, actually, let me flip forward to I talked about the reductions with schools on this slide right here. And I talked about how schools and principles made budget reduction uh decisions. Um but we also had very significant departmental reductions as well. So at district office we actually reduced by a significantly larger p percentage than we asked our our sites to reduce by because we wanted to make sure that we were uh trying to to a degree to shield our our classrooms and our schools from that. So we took larger reduction at district level with through our senior leadership team. uh but but um basically our senior leaders worked with their departments, listened to the department leads, took took

057input and then worked to create those reductions as well. So I didn't want to I didn't want the public or I know the board knows that that happened, but I didn't want the public to think that all of the reductions were coming out of the school sites that it was also uh departmental reductions that were more more significant in percentage uh than than we're asking of the schools too. But again, everything Everything has negative impact. Like it's easy to say what happens in the schools that matters most. It's true. But then if we don't have enough bus drivers to get the kids to school or we don't have um enough human resources staff to make sure that we're processing things quickly enough so that we have our best teachers or things of that nature or

058if we're making reductions in uh curriculum support, those those have impact too. So, uh, we did make a larger reduction in those areas, but, um, certainly any any reduction is is, uh, hard to make. Member Mafil, uh, thank you for that reminder, Superintendent Maggus. Um, and, uh, member Lofal, your points are very well taken, and I think we all recognize that, um, reductions and reallocations is very difficult. Um, and you know, depending on who's in front of us or who's filling our email inboxes or uh our voicemail, you know, it it tugs on everyone's heartstrings when you recognize the real impacts of that some of these cuts are going to end up making. And so I feel um personally that our board is very um cognizant of that responsibility and trying very hard um to

059try to reduce um as much of the bad impact as possible for as many of our students. So, wanted to put that out there. Um, I'm a parent of students who both had the co-eing model and then also had um experience without that co-eing model before it got reinstated after COVID. And the differences were stark in the education that my children received. Um, and so I recognize that and um I wanted to to share that as I come to some of these conversations. um new information for me today was um you know the potential or possibility if necessary to keep any position. Um, tonight we're talking about co- teachers and our lessons for music of dipping into some different fund balances. And I was wondering if I could get some more information on which fund

060balances we're talking about because I thought I saw on paper unassigned, but I hear you saying assigned and I just don't know if it's my ears. Um but then also what impacts that has on um our policy on where our fund balances need to be sitting like per our school district policies and if someone could provide some more information so I have better understanding of that and I'll have Simone speak to that in just a minute but um so basically we uh many districts ours included is is making a course correction in in what we spend each year and so we identified uh that we wanted wanted to and felt we needed to reduce by $7.6 million over the course of the next two years so that we weren't uh to to create like a

061household analogy. We're now earning less. So our our what we have for not earning less but we have less disposable income. So we're having to make budget reductions in what we have in our in our household budget. We do have savings which is our unassigned fund balance but if we start using that savings which we are already using that savings uh we we set ourselves as a target saying we're we're only going to use this amount of savings then we're going to have course correction. So if we don't course course correct completely that means that we need to spend out of that unassigned fund balance uh to make up for what we haven't cut. So, if uh so to speak, if we you know, if we don't get rid of cable, we're going to have

062to take out of our savings account to pay for the cable. Uh I know that's that's not the same as as a human in a position, but that's that's sort of a a household budgeting analogy that that I would make more for the public's benefit than than for you as a board member. But u Director Zunich can probably explain more eloquently than me. Uh good evening. The board policy is that we maintain an 8% fund balance. Uh we ended up last year after the audit at 10.71. So we are still above our fund pal balance amount and we have what we call the assigned fund balance. So those are funds that the board has given us permission to basically set aside for savings. Uh last year the board gave us permission to use up to

0635 million last year to balance the budget and up to 5 million this year to balance the budget. I hope we don't come in that much. I hope it comes in lower. And then we have what we call the unassigned general fund balance. So we have uh money set aside in there and it's all on our you fars comparison table. So it's out there for everyone to see. So that is what Superintendent Magus uh was referring to. It's basically our general fund. So what um if if the admin administrative team decides to um not reduce any further, it would simply come out of our general fund. Followup. And so if we were to take the amount that we're looking for in this conversation right now, um where would that put our percentage of our um

064unassigned fund balance then? Yes, please. It would depend on what the FTE is. if it's one FTE. Um we have a we have an average amount that we use for a certified um instructor. Uh with salary and benefits, it is averages out at $100,000 uh for a certified person. So if they kept one, that would be that amount. If it's two, it would be $200,000. There is money in the ass unassigned fund balance um available there. And so, uh, while we're having additional conversation, I'm sure you could look at what the unassigned fund balance is and figure like let's just say $200,000 because that would be two positions. It might be a little less than that. But, uh, if you could look at that impact, but I think what we're when we say we our

065policy is not to go below 8% being at 10 plus a little bit, that's that's getting close. Uh, and we've spent down quite a bit. And then we also have um you know a variety of upcoming things that are that are uncertain. And so that's part of the reason why we've we've tried to make a more serious course correction with with the 7.6 million which brings us to 10 point what was it 10.6. Yes. So to 10.6. So we could bring let's just say it brings it down to 10.5. That's still above our 8%. So that is something that would would would uh be workable. But it's also um I think I think the board several board members have also expressed concern that we we have to be careful about continuing to say yes and

066and make modification in in too many things because you know we we heard we heard about music but we also heard about um library media specialists. We also heard about special education needs. So all of that together would probably be $500,000 or or more at least. And so we have to think about like what does it mean to to add back or change if we were to to make some of those thing that some of those changes. But actually um executive director uh severance uh you know we we've we've started down the road of the displacements. The displacements have been made. They've been based on on uh the plans that we brought forward. uh that that happened um weeks and weeks ago and so it would be challenging very challenging for us contractually at this

067point to identify additional positions that we'd reduce by. So we would either need to take it out of the unassigned fund balance or we would need to cut spending in other ways to to to make to make that happen. And so that's that's kind of something that I would I would suggest that we don't try to make that that decision quickly, but that we would you temporarily use that savings of the unassigned fund balance so that we could make thoughtful decisions over the the coming months if if we were identifying in that area. Um, Superintendent MS, may I answer one more thing as well? It would reduce the unassigned fund balance by roughly 18%. 200,000. Yes. So, we're I'm using the unassigned fund balance, not the assigned. Somebody get her a whiteboard so we can

068do the math quick. The arithmetic. not I was an English major so I defer to executive director Zunich um these are incredibly difficult conversations to have and I would just echo what um member Lo said when she said talking about um co is that was a time that we actually had access to the money that our public school students deserve and have been promised to us on numerous occasions by many many many different politicians over the year, both at the federal, the state, and and the local level. Um, if we could just get our federal and state partners to live up to their promise to fully fund special education, we would not be in this position. Um, and I I think that's something that we all need to sit with for a minute. These are

069not decisions or reductions that um, anybody is interested in thinking about pulling lessons away from our our middle school music. I think about Lincoln Park and Denfeld and I think about what it means for those schools to have access to that sort of one-on-one and personalized instruction to give those kids that's exactly what they deserve. But as we look for the budgetary constraints that we're going to be talking about for the next five to possibly seven years. We've all looked at the projections. We know what our um deficits are going to look like in 5 to 6 to 7 years and they don't get any better. Um, we are all balancing incredibly difficult decisions having to do with access to our students in middle school to music, which is important. Um, not just because they

070learn to play an instrument, but also we listen to a a a parent tonight talk about how it helped her child track. When she tracked music, it helped her learn how to track in reading. We all know these incredible fundamental um skills that kids learn from music. We are also talking about sitting down and and greatly reducing check and connect that has data that demonstrates to us that kids do better when they have check and connect me mentors. We want to get upstream of some of these things and that check and connect in middle school is a very important as well. Those are conversations we're all having. We listen to conversations about special education. This is not decisions that anybody sitting in this table wants to make. They're terrible to make. They're least best options.

071Um but we have to figure out how to forge a path forward together. And I think that that's something that we all have done very well. um every member of the school board, the administration to talk about the realities of what our budget reductions are going to look like for the next five years and to see our community come out and know that we have that great support for music and music education. That is something that we can use to build on with our community and collectively together with everybody who is sitting here tonight listening to the Sterling Strings and listening to this to um our parents, we can forge a path forward. It might not look like what we want it to, but I think with the um energy and the commitment that we

072see from the board members sitting at this table, that's something that's important to us. So, it might not look like we want it to right now, but I have faith that it will get to where we want it to do. And the next time we engage with our public when we talk about school funding, this is a great example to talk to them about what it means when schools have to make reductions. So, I want to thank each and every one of you sitting at this table for the hard work and the difficult decisions that we've had to make. Um, and I want to thank our team, our administrative team as well. So, thank you all very much. Do we have any other questions or comments now that I'm done bloiating? Great. Thank you. Thank

073you. Thank you. Can I can I I remember I remembered it. I actually want to thank Superintendent Maggas. I know um we went down this journey of of listening to our CFO and the 8% and the 10.71% and it was a great question um member Mikel and I hope maybe we can um talk more about it in in our smaller groups um as we journey. But I think that um I appreciate Superintendent Magus. He knows he talks to all of us, you know, and we we reach out to him with our questions and our concerns and our fears and our hopes and and so I think when he said, you know, it would we could go into some other funding of assigned or unassigned, there's a little bit of of stuff left there. And I

074appreciate that he gave us that, but in a way he's he, you know, he wants uh he he values our input. He knows we're struggling with this. So, I think he gives us a little bit like if if you want to, we can we can kind of dip a little bit into that monies, but if we look at our 5-year projection, which we've all looked at as well, it it's really slim. And then when you look at the uncertainty of um the state and federal funding, and we might not even know what our full funding is until next year. This legislature might be coming back to finish a session that they can't they can't finish right now. So there's just so much uncertainty that I appreciate um Superintendent Magus allowing us to think about what

075that would look like if we if we just had to. But then then you then we've put ourselves in a position of which one of these sessions that had a ton of our community coming and asking whether it's you know library or whether it's check and connect or whether it's special education or whether it's other areas. I just still caution us to keep keep moving forward, asking good questions, and uh we'll get there. But thank you. Thank you. And I want to acknowledge that executive director Zunich was correct. Trust the CFO over an English major. She knows her arithmetic. Um do we have any other questions? All right. Um, thank you for the superintendent report. Then we have our schedule of meetings and events that you can find on board book as well. Um, let

076me blow this bad boy up here. Um, next week we did have a scheduled schoolboard work session, but we are looking at some different times for that to do some work as a school board. And then starting the week of May 5th through the 9th, we start our cycle again with our monthly committee of the whole. Wednesday we have our American Indian parent advisory committee. Also our Johnson Ali committee. Then on Thursday we both have the parent advisory committee for special ed and head start parent policy council. So thank you to all our schoolboard reps um to those committees. Now we will move on to reports of our standing committee and I'd like to um turn it over to Assistant Superintendent Bonds to talk about our very robust and lengthy committee of the whole meeting.

077Thank you. Thank you chair Eer. Um it was a robust uh full agenda and I appreciate all of the presenters for all of their hard work and getting things ready for the meetings. The first presentation was provided by myself as well as Sheila White, our coordinator for the American Indian Indian um education department. uh we provided some information and a resolution for the American Indian Advisory Committee's vote of non-concurrence and the resolution that was issued on February 25th. State statute requires that the board respond within 60 days. So there was a um a lot of dialogue related to the recommendations that were provided from our APEC. I want to thank this board for the lengthy discussion um the thorough discussion regarding our apex recommendation. Um I I truly believe it it demonstrates to them that

078we are truly taking their recommendations very seriously. So I want to thank you for um the amount of time you took to really consider the recommendations. I want to thank the team also for um developing a response to what the district would do to address some of the recommendations that were uh presented by our APAC. So um so thank you. So the second presentation that was provided uh was provided by um Jennifer Welnuts as well as Tom Tuskin, the principal of Denford High School. They provided a status report for the bar program. uh the update for the school board and district administration on the bar program uh that is uh being provided at Dinfeld regarding the innovations and interventions that have been created and that are data based decisions. Um and so information was provided

079regarding the programming that really supports students and allow them to be successful as learners. Sher Williams, our Head Start director, provided a presentation related to the DUTH Head Start annual approvals. The board received several documents to review and uh sign off on. Um it was related to the one the self assessment report, the transportation waiver as well as the FY26 federal head start grant information. Our very own superintendent provided uh some information also related to the duth promise. the the lof promise represents a robust collaboration between multiple educational and workforce development entities and it's um something that the committee has uh and community has heard about before. So um thank you superintendent for that presentation and of course our very own uh Simone Zunes the executive director for business services provided a presentation regarding the

080FY26 budget timeline and impact overview. That concluded our cow agenda. Do we have any questions or comments about the cow meeting? Looks good. Okay. Thank you, Assistant Superintendent Bonds. I'd like to move on next and turn it over to chair of the HR business services committee, um, Chair Saddowski to give a synopsis of, um, that meeting. Yep. We had a very robust, um, meeting on Monday, April 14th. So, I believe that was last Monday. Um, and as per last month, I'm just going to kind of go over um some of the categories on our table of contents of, if you will, of what we talk about, but I would encourage everyone to visit our YouTube channel and listen to the meeting because we really go into um all of the materials in here in depth

081and it is a lot. Um, we had a large packet this time. Um, but we cover our human resources report, business services, which includes enrollment, child nutrition, facilities, health and safety, technology, and transportation. We look over our recommended resolutions. Um, and then we look at our consent agenda, which has our HR staffing report. Um, this time we had job descriptions that I'll talk about in a little bit. Um, we have our bids, RFPs, and quotes, and our financial report. And then we have contracts, change orders, and leases. And then um at the end there's some miscellaneous information items including our expenditure contracts, no cost contracts, revenue contracts, grant applications, and this time we had our mod rating as well, which I'll talk about. So I just am going to highlight a few of the things

082that we kind of talked about at that meeting, and then if anyone has any questions, um we can open it up for discussion. Um, for our human resources report, um, we have new health insurance renewal rates that have been received and it was only an increase of 5.6. So, that was good to see. The DWIA contract has settled and negotiations for the 2527 contracts are being scheduled for DUTH principles association, our ask me uh pair of professionals, um the food service and the integration specialists. Under child nutrition, we are renewing our Upper Lakes food bid and I wanted to just highlight that there's a 10% increase there. So when we look at our budget and all of the things, you know, we're not getting a 10% increase from the state or the federal government or

083anyone. So it's it's it's tough. Um and inflation is real and I know um many different organizations deal with that, but I wanted to highlight that because that was pretty stark increase. Um we also um started a meal contract with the kids college daycare center and that you will find under our revenue contracts which is always nice to see. So we're going to be providing them with some meals. And then total to date we've served 1,12,967 total meals and snacks so far this year. Under the facilities report, I wanted to highlight that we're working on getting all the bids completed and reviewed for summer projects. So, that work is happening. Summer's going to come quick and our team is working really hard to make sure that we are set to do all that work on

084our schools um when our students are out. under the transportation report. Um, I thought it was, I don't know, kind of illustrative of where we are in our society right now, but the lead mechanic pre-ordered bus parts that are commonly needed ahead of tariffs to save money in the future, which I thought was very smart. And a side note, um, in my day job, I, um, put in an order for some furnishings and they already had a tariff searchcharge. So, I think this is really smart. I thought of this our HR business report when I saw that tariff searchcharge already on there. Let's see. Um, resolutions. So, for our resolutions, we had donations to Duth Public Schools and then grants. And then the two job descriptions I wanted to highlight that are on there are

085for the director of technology and the district community ed director. Um, and hopefully you saw some emails um that were shared more information about that today, but I think um the director of technology is a combined position, so that'll save funds from what I understand. Um, but if you have any questions, we can open it up um towards the end. And then um wanted to highlight I always highlight our finance report because that's a big part of what we do. Um I just wanted to share that at the if you look at that page on the top for the general fund one you will see the increase um that I mentioned last month reflected in our budget now. So last month you saw that we were going to add in the 32 ADM the St.

086Louis tax um tiff money and then some special ed funding um and that is um reflected in the budget right now. And then um under expenditure contracts, we had many many facilities contracts. I read through them all. It took a long time. Um a lot of them um I was talking to um director Seance. The these are time and materials contracts. So we sign contracts so that we can have them kind of on call if we need them. That's how I understood it. Is that correct? So there were a lot in there, but these are contracts that we sign every year, every couple years just to make sure that we have people on call when we need them. And then um member banks had a good highlight at our meeting that I wanted to highlight

087here um in under one of the expenditure contracts um was for a contractor that's going to strategize and plan events that align with the objectives of the district uh affinity groups. So, I appreciated member banks bringing that up and pointing that out. It's a smaller one, but really important work for that. And then the last item in our um in this committee was the um experience modification factor, the mod rating, and that was a very good rating. So, do we have any other additional questions or information that we want to share? Member Loa or I mean member, sorry. Yes, great update as always. Uh, member Saddowski, I I just wondered if did you discuss any uh in the um uh enrollment report on uh kindergarten meet and greets and what our numbers were looking for

088because I think most of those happened the end of March, didn't they? That's a good That's a good question. We didn't talk about the kindergarten meet and greets at all, but our enrollment has been trending up all year, which is why we were able to add that 32 ADM onto our budget. Um and so even though things enrollment starts to decline this time of year because of graduations and things like that, we're still above. But maybe um Superintendent Magus or someone would have some information on that. Uh the enrollment team met today. Um we are just finalizing all of that. Um assistant superintendent Bonds was with us as well. Um I can provide that at our next meeting. But uh the enrollment team was able to attend those and I think it was wellreceived. It

089was a big help uh well received by the principles and the clerical staff. So um can't give you an exact number yet but I will. Okay. Great. I I mean I heard a lot of good things from uh parents or potential parents uh on the meet and greets and so I just know we generally have some ballpark numbers and uh that'll be good to get an update on. And then also on the child nutrition report I was just it you reviewed in there some of the sites for our summer meal programs and are those definite sites that were listed um in the report? Um um or it says applied to be a sponsor for summer meal programs at approved sites. So are we are these sites definite or are we waiting to find out? Um

090Sheilo has not told me yet that they've been finally approved, but I I would say that's probably going to be correct. Okay. Yes. Okay. Excellent. Um we it's a a large number of sites across the district. But um I think those were my two main questions for now. Sounds good. Little followup on enrollment though. We did uh we have been doing that enrollment campaign um and Superintendent Magus I think you mentioned at our HR business services meeting that we have seen um you know success from that enrollments. Yes. And that thinking about uh I mean there are many things that go through my head. one of the things that that we talked about thankfully. Sorry, it's been it's been a little bit of a long day. Um, but we during during some of our input

091sessions, one of the one of the things that our our teachers brought up and we agreed with was that we really could do more related to enrollment uh campaign efforts. So, we we worked with School Mint uh and we have a new contract with them, but we've already more than paid for that contract with new enroles. And um actually um Miss Whoa. Miss Severance was or Miss Severance, Miss uh Wellins was here uh earlier, but you've probably seen a lot of new video, new media on social media related to different things that we're enhancing. That's part of our enrollment campaign, and that has uh really resulted in quite a few more students coming. Um we have about 75 additional students coming into Lincoln Park for instance than we had last year. And we're seeing a

092lot of enrollment from uh some of our private schools and charter schools in the area. And so I think a lot of a lot of students are really seeing and recognizing what we're doing here in Duth Public Schools. And I think it's important for us to get those good stories out there, get the good message out there about what we're doing because sometimes it's when we're like many other districts around the state uh communicating about budget reductions and hard times. It's important to to see what we're doing well as well. Thank you. I had one other I I couldn't find it in the update and I I don't know if it was in your update, uh, Superintendent Maggus, but about the lead testing, uh, grant, uh, can you just highlight that because I was really

093excited that we received a grant to do that? Well, is it in the grant? I can't remember. It's under It should be under the safety. Oh, no. I I was trying to find it in here, but yes, Lexi, our safety um person, did apply and receive the um the lead water testing grant. I don't have the specifics in front of me um for what that entails and how many sites that will cover, but I can certainly send that to you. Yeah, that would be great to have that. That's just been a concern that we've watched over the years, uh not only, you know, with our school buildings, but here as a community. So, thank you. Great. Thank you. Um, member Loalt, I just want to echo um, member Laughler Kemp, too. I I really appreciate

094your finance um, reports and HR. You you you have learned well from our former uh, HR business chair, a good role model. But, um, and one of the things I want to I think it's more for our public and for those that are have lasted through the whole meeting. I'm so and so appreciative that um we serve on different committees and so in a little bit you're going to hear from the policy and and that's um member Mike Cell, member Laughler Camp and myself and with member Zidowski her team is member Zidowski, member um Banks and member Williams. Yeah, I was just going to say Stephanie, but yeah. And so their their input and their um ability to really drill into all of these um um different different agenda items means that I watch the

095meetings. They're they're on YouTube. Um and I listen and I follow along and I know that the um HR business report was so long this month, we couldn't load it back up. We couldn't load the whole thing back into board book for tonight's meeting. I I could go back and get it for your meeting, but um because there was like 271 pages of financial um and HR business. So, I appreciate the hard work that our committees do. And that's just a reminder to our community that um we we rely on our board members to do really a lot of hard work and and they're experts in a lot of the areas that they serve on the committee for. And so I'm going to um admit that I have just a question about um under 5e

096for FY26, what what is the experience modification factor? I don't even remember hearing it when I was listening to the um HR business. The very last item on five maybe someone can help you. Modification rating is a factor that's used in workers comp insurance to adjust premiums based on claims history. But if we have anything else to add, that'd be great. Okay. Okay. Thank you. If there are no other questions or comments, then that can end our report. Thank you, Member Sidowski. Um now we'll move on to our policy committee and um chair of that committee is member Laughafler Kemp. So chair Laughafler Kemp, thank you and uh thank you uh member Lo for reminding folks about uh the committee work that happens and uh that all of it is on YouTube so you can

097uh go back and learn more about the extended discussions that we have at our at the committee level. Uh so we met for our policy committee on Tuesday, April 15th and um the the next policy committee is uh May 13th just to put it on your calendar. Uh and we had a a policy for first reading policy 413 prohibiting harassment and violence. And this policy we are going to be deleting um the current policy 413 and we're adopting the NSBA model policy. So the deletion means we're just adopting it into this new policy. Uh and uh deleting 413. Yeah. Uh and um so I'm going to read the purpose as I always do of the policy. And this purpose is uh the purpose of this policy is to maintain a learning and working environment free

098from harassment and violence on the basis of race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, familia status, status with regard to public assistance, sexual orientation or disability. And these are protective class uh uh uh statuses. And so um again like all of the policies it goes into a general statement of the policies definitions um in this case reporting procedures uh uh the uh uh in our district the designate Terresa Severance our executive director of human resources and operations is our school district human rights officer. So she would receive reports or complaints of harassment or violence prohibited by this policy. Uh so it highlights uh kind of who who takes um takes it in at the district level. It highlights the investigation procedures, school district action uh and it goes on uh and then

099at the end uh it does highlight uh the dissemination of policy and training. So this policy shall appear in the student handbook. Uh and um uh this policy shall be re reviewed at least annually for compliance with state and federal law. And I just want to highlight again the legal and cross references are always at the back of the policy. And with this one in particular, I want to highlight this falls with the Minnesota Human Rights Act with the revisions in that act from 2023. So um that is our policy for first reading. Uh it will um we had a lot of really good discussion on that. And then um the next policy for our second reading was 525 violence prevention and reading the right one. Let me see here. Um yeah. And so had

100this in a different order so excuse me. There you go. So um and this is actually our third reading of this policy. You might remember uh our um in our policy meeting and we when we brought it forward uh the last two readings we we wanted um more time to work on it. So we we brought it forward for a third time rather than the typical two two readings. But uh 525 again uh the purpose of this policy is uh this policy acknowledges that violence is a critical issue for schools to address. The Duth school district will establish and implement measures to ensure a safe and disruptivefree learning environment for all students and staff. The school board is committed to promoting healthy human relationships and learning environments that are physically and psychologically safe for all

101members of the school community. It further believes that students are the first priority and they should be protected from physical or emotional harm during school activities and on school grounds, buses or field trips while under school district supervision. And again it goes through um some of the changes that we uh made to this policy are highlighted in yellow. Uh and then again um we did add I I just wanted to point out uh it highlights the implementation of the policy. It highlights um prevention strategies uh which we have been doing many. Uh and then at the end of the prevention strategies uh T was added uh to promote the safe storage of guns in accordance with the schoolboard resolution for the safe storage of weapons. So we added that. And then um under student support

102um uh one of the things we added uh under D was students will be informed of resources for violence prevention, restorative practices, relationship skills and proper reporting and then again just highlights the legal and cross references u from state statutes. So this is the second reading we're bringing forward to pass. And then uh the last um item for um it initially was for review but we we are bringing it forward for um that's where I I was looking at two different things. I apologize. Uh so 770 the bidding process is for first reading. Uh and um uh it was initially for review and we're renumbering it to uh 726 and um we had a lot of really great discussion on this. Thank you for all your um uh uh information as we were learning more

103about the bidding process while we were reviewing this policy. Um but the purpose is bids, RFPs and quotes are obtained to ensure fair competition and transparency in the procurement process. Suppliers and/or contractors are invited to submit bids or proposals meeting predetermined specifications. This allows for evaluation of pricing and criteria criteria to select the most suitable vendor. And then there's many pieces to this um first reading and um as I said a lot of good information and questions and so we moved it to a first reading. It'll come back in our policy committee uh and then uh the board will have another chance to look at it rather than it just being reviewed one time. And then the last item in our committee was uh moreformational and it was policy 413 which was the harassment complete

104uh the the regulation I'm sorry uh the harassment complaint form and um we had some discussion on that and I don't know if the changes were made from our discussion we talked about changing the kind of the title of it and then adding familia and did that get changed I I didn't see that in the boxes. Yeah, it's because we didn't get the Okay. Yeah. So, okay. Okay. Okay. So, because it wasformational uh and then it goes with the policy that 413 which just went through its first reading. So it has another opportunity to come back. So that was uh that'll come back. Uh and then um that was all. So it's a good meeting. A lot of good information, a lot of good questions. And uh our next policy meeting is May 13th. Thank

105you. Any questions? I just wanted more of a comment. Just wanted to say that I really appreciate you adding in the letter T to the policy 525 uh for the promotion of safe storage of guns. Um yeah, I think that's really important. I just wanted to thank the committee for all their work on the policies and then of course um uh board secretary Pquette for all her work as our kind of a keeper of policies. So thanks. Thank you. Good. Do I? Okay. Hi. I just um I had a quick question on the first reading as we look at the prohibiting harassment and violence. I just noticed on here and I'm assuming it's because we have harassment based on harassment and violence based on gender identity is probably in one of our other um let

106me start over. Let me use my words. I'm struggling right now. Um policy 413 as I read through it. very specific in talking about many protected classes and gender identity or gender expression is not included in this policy. Is that because we have those um protections built in in different policies? Well, one of the that was talked about and one of the things that was highlighted is within the policy uh gender identity is uh uh go to um uh definitions three and then go all the way to um number six where it says sexual orientation means to whom someone is uh or is perceived as being emotional or physically or sexually attracted to based on sex or gender identity. And then uh it goes on to highlight a person may be attracted to men, women,

107both neither or to people who are gender queer and julist or have other agenda identities. So it was kind of covered there. So we did raise that question with uh NSBA. Um thank you, Rosie. And then I was just curious um on the harassment complaint form on that form um under let me just blow this up under when it says type of complaint and then protected group on there it does have where you can check gender identity or expression. So um does that matter if that is somewhere you can check in the complaint form but it's not totally explicit in the policy. Does that matter? Do you think I think we talked about this back there? So, I just need to go back because I I I might have missed it. So, I should just

108go back and watch the meeting then. Does that Well, we were at the We were at the meeting. I I thought it was I thought we had that um referred to or or maybe in that second reading, we can look into that and dig into that a little bit more. Okay. As well. Well, this isn't the this isn't the third. Okay. Okay. This isn't the one that I got you. I got you. Gotcha. Got it. Okay. Those are just those are just my questions and then just because this is my the pool in which I swim a lot. Um if you have harassment based on sex that can go through a Title 9 complaint process depending on severity. So, if we have somebody who submits this form and says that I've been harassed based on

109my sex, um, how do we know that that doesn't leak into the Title N versus just here? So, that would just be something I would think about for the second reading. Thank you. Um, I appreciate all your work on this. Thank you. I just may I don't know if there's anything you'd want to add. Uh Teresa, the title N. So when we get the complaint forms, we do look for that. The title N is handled by Anthony and assistant superintendent Bonds. Um and we both get those complaints and and work through that. So thank you for pointing it out portion that we probably should include there. Okay. Thank you both. Thank you. And then I just have one. I just want to piggy back off of memberski and and and know that um as a

110committee we brought forth that t um condition about putting in into this policy that one of the um ways to um work through the strategies for violence prevention is you know for safe gun storage. So my question to to the staff is just to make sure that I know when we first brought that resolution forward a few years ago, there were brochures, it was going home or it was going in it was being communicated with our schools. Um, but I don't know if that's happening every year in the August when they're mailing out all of the beginning school information. That's where it was two years ago. Is that still the process that we're using and can we make sure that that is still being done? We have do we still have the brochures that we

111created and all of that? Just just a you know, you don't have to answer it tonight, but just a reminder that we really want to make sure that that's a part of our back to school program like we started it two years ago. It's my understanding that it is, but we can uh verify that. So that that's been our expectation. So that's been our expectation. Sometime occasionally things will deviate from expectation over time, but we need to make sure that it's uh and sometimes we just have staff turnover in in our offices within our schools and so sometimes those little things if it's is something it's a fairly new request on part of um the leadership and the school board to make sure that that is always going out in our back to school packet.

112So, just wanted to check in and and I actually think we had talked about doing it more than once, knowing that in the fall of the year, um there might be different families in the the winter of the year and and students, so not just having it be a once a year in the back to school packet. Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Member um Saddowski. Um, I was just going to say I do remember getting communication about it this last year. Um, but the years do blend together. So, I really appreciate you bringing that up. Um, and we're lucky to have multiple ways to communicate this information. Um, because of the great uh I don't know the app that we have now and just different ways of communicating. I appreciate that. Thank you, Chair

113Laughler Kemp. Now, we have um some time for some general board committee updates. Many of our um members of our schoolboard committee serve on other committees as um liaons between the school board and other committees throughout the district. So, this is a time where we like to hear from our schoolboard members about anything they'd like to share with us and the public. Member Loeld. Yeah, I even went to so far as to write him down before I came because I looked through my calendar to see what it was and now I can't find that piece of paper of what I wrote it down. I know that um member Laughler Kemp and I went down in um the last part of March, I think it was March 24th to uh a day at the capital and

114as we see still people in our audience for our board meeting um that's something that you know um it feels like it's something we can do to try to get more um revenue for schools um not just for Duth but for all over but AMSD sponsors a day at the capital where all schoolboard members and um people, community members important in education get to talk with legislators about, you know, funding and um continue the funding. So, I know member Laughler Kemp and I went down to that. And I also know that um we also were had the ability to sit in and with our quality steering committee and be in community with our teachers and our staff. I you know sometimes they don't think that we you know h that school board members maybe don't

115get a much connection with um employees or staff or leadership but in actuality all of us sit on so many committees that directly are with teachers. So again, um, my I guess I'm on a lot of committees with member Laughler camp, but we're on this committee for 4 hours from 8:00 till noon. We sit in community and listen to teachers and our administration have important dialogue on important issues, you know, trying to to resolve. And it's nice when we go there and there are things getting taken off the agenda because you've worked together with staff and leadership to solve this the problems that some see. And I really encourage both our community and each other that those minutes to those meetings are in our weekly um newsletter right someplace. But so that's that's where I

116spent some of my extra time this month. I I think they are in the staff newsletter. I don't know that they go out in the community newsletter. I feel like we see them on community we get them on parent square. Don't we see them on parent square too? Isn't that does it go out in the if you're receiving that as a board member slash employee or I can I can double check with Adele Adele do our labor management meeting notes go out in just the staff newsletter or the community one as well. Okay, that's what I thought. And are I stand corrected? Am I getting even a broken clock is right twice a day coach or because I'm on the school board. Okay. Yeah, I I was just going to uh say um so make

117sure you guys read them to see because there is just a wealth of information in that the quality steering committee that is discussed. Um the other committee that I serve on is the Duth Public Schools Endowment Fund. And I'll um hold off saying much because I when we do the acceptance of the grant awards, you'll learn more about the wonderful grants that we are giving to teachers across the district and staff across the district. Uh member Micahel and then member Saddowski. Um I sit uh with member Loal and member Saddowski on the intergovernmental committee meeting and um our meeting was postponed last week due to an event that our county commissioners and our city council reps for that committee needed to be at. So that is uh been rescheduled for tomorrow morning. See you all

118there or not. Um so I attend the Head Start Policy Council meeting. Um, it's just a great opportunity. I know I say it every month, but I just really appreciate all the parents that are involved and take time um, out of their schedules away from their kids. Well, there's daycare provided actually, which is really cool, which allows them to come. Um, but there was a nice meeting. Um, I I think one of the things that we talked about obviously is the um really big concerns about Head Start funding um and kind of what's going on there and uh those parents um wrote letters and postcards to kind of send to uh one of our representatives. So that was nice. They took some time to do that. Member Laughler camp. Yeah. I just wanted to add

119uh not really a committee but um yesterday I had the opportunity to go down to St. Paul uh to um celebrate Mary Murphy Day at the Capitol, our former state representative who died in December and was one of our um district employees uh at one time a central high school teacher, government teacher, as well as a strong advocate for Duth Public Schools and all public schools. And um so they had a day to honor her yesterday and um uh a number of um people spoke uh about her uh as well as uh the governor had a proclamation for her and we all had blueberry muffins because she sponsored the blueberry muffin bill uh with Carlton high carlton third grade students. Um, so we honored her that way. And I have buttons with for all of

120you with her picture on that we also handed out. So I have that and I just wanted to mention that also. She was just so instrumental in the duth comm or the the community school um uh grants uh that came from the state that our district benefited from to expand our community schools at Lincoln Park and at uh Denfeld. So, her legacy uh is here in our district in many ways and um I just wanted to mention uh that that the local news carried a lot of stories about yesterday as well. So, if you get a chance to read um and I'll give you your buttons later with her beautiful face on it. Okay, it was a great day. I saw that this morning on Fox 21 about the blueberry muffins. I thought that was

121very sweet. Um, do we have any other committee? May I? Yes, please. Member Banks. Thank you. I um now serve on the transfer appeal committee and we had a meeting um just this past week and um for confidentiality's sake. Uh we had the district present its um side and then we had parents come in and uh we heard from them and uh we made some decisions based on what we heard and uh it was well um well informed and uh plenty of information so that we could make the correct decisions. Uh again, I won't mention family names and all of that for confidentiality, but I want to thank Assistant Superintendent Bonds for the way he presented and approached um that committee. So, that was my first time attending and so it went quite well. So,

122Thank you, member Banks. And I think that does. Are we good? Great. Now we'll move on to our consent agenda. You can find your consent agenda located on board book and it has many items from both the HR business services the um committee of the whole and then also our policy committee. So do I have a motion um for our consent agenda? So moved. Member Laughler Kemp. Do I have a second? Second. Um member Saddowski seconds. Do we have any discussion about our consent agenda? Do we have any discussion? Um, member Laughler Camp is your light. Oh, great. Thank you. Um, seeing no further discussion, all those in favor of approving the consent agenda, please signify by saying I. I oppose. Nay. Motion carries. We have passed our consent agenda. Next, we move on to

123item 10, resolutions from um committee reports. The first one is acceptance of um donations to the duth public schools member lod. So I'm moving resolution um B-4-25-493. It is the acceptance of donations to D public schools. Whereas Minnesota statute 465.03 03 requires a school district to accept donations by resolution expressed in the terms prescribed by the donor in full and whereas acceptance of the donations in accordance with the donor's terms is in the best interest of the duth public schools. Now therefore be it resolved that the duth public schools does accept the below described donations from said organizations in accordance with the terms set forth herein. Be it further resolved that the Duluth public schools sincerely wishes to extend its grateful appreciation to these various individuals and organizations and we all have that list. It's

124noted in our board book. Um I do know that Denfeld High School is rewarding their students that um maintain a strong Denfeld license um and privilege that they're going to um Valley Fair on May 16th. And so you'll see a lot of give give me donations. And as I look at the donations, and I don't want to necessarily go back to our um needs and budget, but our community is so gracious about um donations and and so I I really have high hopes for partnerships that in all areas, whether it's, you know, the in our music or if it's in our check and connect or if it's in our pair of professionals or that we continue to see our community step forward with donations. But I move uh resolution B-4-25-4093 donations. Member Loeld has moved

125um resolution B-425-493. Do we have a second? Second. Um member Saddowski. Click on the seconds this evening. Um so we have moved by member Loalt, seconded by member Saddowski. Do we have any discussion? Any discussion? Seeing no further discussion, all those in favor of um resolution B-4-25493, acceptance of donations to the DUTH public schools, please signify by saying I. I. Opposed. Um motion carries. Woohoo. Um next we have resolution B-4-254094. Member Laughler Camp. Thank you. I move resolution B42549 40 4094 acceptance of grant awards to DUT public schools whereas Minnesota statute 46503 requires a school district to accept grants by resolution expressed in the terms prescribed by the donor in full and whereas acceptance of the grant in accordance with the donor's terms is in the best interest of the Duth public schools. Now therefore

126be it resolved that the duth public schools does accept the below described grant from set organization in accordance with the term set forth herein. Uh and it lists a number of of grants. Uh Minnesota council of teachers council of teachers of mathematics received a they uh they presented a grant. Um uh and then the Duth Public Schools Endowment Fund has 20 different grants that each year we do at this uh meeting. Uh and I just wanted to highlight it's uh about $36,000 in grants. We're actually looking still at a couple other grants that may come forward um after the fact. Uh and uh the grants went to Denfeld High School, Duth East High School, Laura MacArthur, um uh a number of them to to all of those schools, Luster Park, Lincoln Park, Myers Wilkins, Ordin

127East. Um some of them were individual for uh specific uh staff. Uh some of them were schoolwide grants uh dealing with different um mental meeting mental health uh needs. So, um, those, uh, were some of the the grants that fell under the DITH public schools endowment fund. Um, and then, uh, Piedmont, uh, Rockidge Academy as well as ECF received a grant. We reserve reserve, uh, received a huge grant with the Minnesota Department of Health. And this is where I saw it um for for Alexi Nef and it was a $60,000 grant um for decreasing the level of uh lead and water in schools. So I'm really excited about that. And then another one for um uh STEM education funds to Denfeld High School for 4,500. Um so I move um resolution B42544094 and again thank

128the uh different um staff who wrote these grants as well as um the organizations that are supporting the Dith public schools. Um member Laughler has moved resolution B-4254094. Do I have a second? A second. Member Lel second. Beat out member Saddowski. Um, so we've moved by member Laughafler Kemp, seconded by member Loal. Do we have any discussion? Just one. Oh, yes. I I just want to say uh thank you uh member Laughler Kemp. You've always been a steadfast uh supporter of this uh funding and as well as an encourager of people to write the grants. And to think about the impact of $36,000 worth of funding that has so many ripple effects in so many areas. if you read the the the different grants and um I just really admire what the the uh foundation

129is able to do but also what what you're able to do through uh the advocacy for that. So thank you. Thank you. And I I do want to thank you remind folks that this is uh the Duth Public Schools fund is separate than uh DUTH public schools funding. It's through the duth community duth superior area community foundation. So it's a separate than um the duth public schools. So thank you. Do we have any other discussion? Can I ask member laugh is I've always been um thinking that the the this agency that you sit on their committee is donations by former employees of our district and like thanks for asking. Where does the money come from for this Duth Public Found? What is it called? This this we we we give out about $36,000 every year.

130Um um the the the funds have been raised over the years. So uh it's the interest on the funds, but um uh individuals uh do contribute uh former staff, community members. It really comes from a variety of ways. When I go out and do the pitches with other members of the endowment board uh to our school sites, we always uh encourage them to consider a gift uh but also to serve on the board because the the board members are often retired school staff uh or um uh from teachers to to principles uh as well as community members. So, it was started. Yeah. So, I'd be glad to tell you more about it. Um, seeing no further discussion, all those in favor, please signify um support of acceptance of grant awards to Duth Public Schools by

131saying I I opposed. Motion carries. Um, next, moving on to special resolution and actions. We have special resolution resolution E-4-254095 which is our response to the American Indian parent committee concurrence and non-concurrence member Mike. Yes. Um before I move this next resolution I do want to express um our gratitude for our parent members of our American Indian Education parent committee as well as all the district staff and our community members who work with them and support them. um this team of people are dedicated to the success of our indigenous students. Um and we just so appreciate their extraordinary time and the energy that they put towards this work um and the commitment um that they have to our students and to our district as a whole. So with that um I would like to move

132resolution E-4-25-4095 of the response to the American Indian parent committee resolution of concurrence and non-concurrence 2024 to 2025. Whereas Minnesota statute 124D.78 requires a school board to respond in writing within 60 days in cases of non-concurrence to each recommendation made by the American Indian Education Parent Committee and state its reasons for implementing or not implementing the recommendations. Now therefore be it resolved that the DUTH school board submits the response to the American Indian Education Resolution of Concurrence and non-concurrence 2024 to 2025 report as attached. Member Mike Cassell has moved special resolution E-425 4095. Do we have a second? Second. Who seconded? That was me. Okay. Member Williams. Thank you. Um do we have any discussion? Member Williams. Um I would also like to extend um Chi Migwitch, thank you very much to our um parent

133advisory committee. There is a lot of time and effort and and thoughtful discussion and uh just want to acknowledge that we're going through growing pains and I'm wearing Patty's glasses and can't see very a lot of them. Sorry. Um and yeah, we're going we're going through growing pains as as there's been a lot of um turnover and transitions just with the committee and then with the American Indian department itself. So I hope that we continue to build um this goodwill. Um I am glad to be engaged in Apac again. Um, unfortunately I couldn't be there in person, so it was difficult to follow along the last meeting over Zoom, but I look forward to going again next month and and being engaged and having discussions and bringing those discussions back here to the school board

134and all of that. So, um, yeah, I just wanted to say that. So, a big thank you just on public record to our parent advisory committee. Thank you, member Williams. Do we have any other discussion? Member Laughler? not so much discussion, but again um I I just really appreciated the conversation we had um uh at our committee on this and just really the thoughtful questions everybody asked and um the thoughtfulness that our staff put into uh the responses and um it was just a very important conversation that we had uh last was it last week already? Uh, and uh, so I just really wanted to recognize um, uh, all the work that went into where we're at today with passing this concurrence. So, thank you. Member Williams, please take back to the committee our appreciation

135for their work and the support um, of all of us sitting at the table for the important work that they're doing. Thank you. Um, seeing no further discussion, all those in favor of special resolution E-4254095, please signify by saying I. I. I. Those opposed. Um, motion passes. Thank you. Do we have any other questions? Superintendent Magus. Uh I know during the conversations on our American serving our American Indian students we've also had questions and conversation around when our next tribal consultation is and uh Mr. Bonds uh you able to set that. You want to bring that up? Yes. I was just uh put the green light on before you started talking. I wanted to make the board aware that we do have our tribal consultation set up. It will be held on April 30th. So

136April 30th from 1 uh beginning at 1:00 until it ends. So, beginning at 1:00 um u at the Big Lake um Finalac location, which is 1720 Big Lake Road, and that consultation will begin again at 1:00. with with that we would very much appreciate um at least one board member participating if you know quite often it oftentimes is the chair but if if you're not available if we could have a designate and maybe uh I don't know if me member Williams it might not work out during your work schedule but just thinking about uh having board member involvement in that tribal consultation would be helpful. we do have to work according to the the trib's availability. So, we apologize uh that we weren't able to infer as heavily as far as what dates to choose.

137Thank you for that work both of you. Um do we have any other questions or any more of a comment? I have this is more of a update. Um last week I was able to get to the uh Duth Public Schools art teachers work. um uh display which is at the zygeist in their atrium and uh wonderful art from teachers across our district. Uh has I don't know if anyone else has had a chance to see it. Uh they had a reception last week but um it's on display until the 29th. So go uh do something at Zygeist and take in the beautiful work um um of our uh art teachers across the district. Yeah. pottery, paint, lots of things. Thank you, Member Laughler camp, for that reminder. That sounds amazing. Um, member Saddowski. No,

138Lel was first. Oh, sorry. Member Loalt. Mine too. As a reminder, um, I'll have um, Executive Secretary Pakquette email out, but um, we have started to visit schools again. Like we have made this commitment. We were there in the fall and now it's time in the spring. So, right now we do have um dates and times for Stowe, Laurel MacArthur, and Lincoln. And so, I'll have Patty um send those out. And then there's a Google form you can access as well. Member Saddowski, very briefly, just wanted to lift up our Denfeld um theater department. Um got to go see Legally Blonde on Saturday night. It was phenomenal. Um, that's a great way to bookend this meeting music and then I love that. Um, do we have any other questions? Any other comments? I I'll just

139shout out again. This is Denfeld's night, I think. But, um, and I think they'll probably visit maybe if I talk with Adele, but the Denfeld speech team is off to and so is the Denel the Duth East speech team off to the state tournament this coming um, Friday and Saturday in Shakape. So, we have great students representing um the spoken word um going to travel. They they they won the section 7A, so now they get to also advance to the stage. So, we'll wish them good luck and I'm sure we'll see them at a next month's board meeting. All right. Anything? Okay. Um see, we have six more minutes. No, now I have the giggles. Okay. Um, yes. So now, can I find a motion to um adjourn the meeting, please? So moved. Oh, member

140Saddowski, you changing it up. Come in with a Do I have a second? Really? Member Williams is a second. All those in favor of adjourning the meeting, please. Do we want to talk about it, sir? I'm just kidding. Um, I can't even. Oh, all those in favor of ending this meeting signify by saying I. I. Opposed? Motion carries. Thank you all for your work. Thank you. I can.