Duluth Public Schools - December 17, 2024 at 6:30 PM - Regular School Board Meeting

001e e e sorry for the delay and Tori will give me a thumbs up when we are live welcome welcome again to a isd709 duth public schools regular monthly Schoolboard meeting it is Tuesday December 17th it is 708 we thank you for hanging in there with us while we've been delayed because we've had a number of other meetings prior to this but we are here and I'll turn it over to member zowy who will take role member banks here member Durk eer here member laugher Kemp here member LEL here member Mikel here I am here member Williams here superintendent Magus here assistant superintendent bonds Pres Deputy clerk zunich present executive director of HR and operations Severance present board secretary pette here and our um duth East student School Board representative Patronus here perfect thank you

002we will now rise for the Pledge of Allegiance rise if you can I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it belongs one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all school board members we've had the agenda in our packet for the last few days I'm looking for a motion to approve our agenda so move is there a second second member eer makes the motion member Mike cell um seconds it is there any discussion about items or any additions to our agenda see none all those in favor of passing the agenda tonight say I opposed motion carries we're moving on to um number five on our school board agenda it's a school and Community recognition I'll turn it over to assistant superintendent bonds

003for this presentation thank you good evening again and dear school board members it is with great pleasure and pride that I bring to your attention the remarkable achievements of our students right in front of me these students competed in June of 2024 they attended the Health occupation students of America which is HOSA future health professionals International Leadership Conference at this prestigious event over 11,000 competitors showcased their exceptional talent and dedication as young young healthc care leaders we had six outstanding students from dth and their adviser Kim Olen is also present uh they represented our district they are Lily Ortman who could not be here with us today uh she's an East graduate from 2024 Marcus Cameron is currently uh not able to attend as well um but he is a 12th grader Brendan flag is

004a denfield graduate from 2024 Evan bolus is a denfi 12th grader are you aable when I say your name there you go Alex Davis is a denfi 12th grade student and Talon seok is a East 12th grader their accomplishments are truly commendable Lily secured an impressive second place in the international home health aid competition she also received the Barbara Johnson service award at the silver level for a commitment to community service br Brendan achieved an outstanding eighth place in the healthc care event Evan successfully Advanced to the second round in the challenging respiratory therapy competition and Talon at the state level he won and then also qualified for the international competition for public service announcement unfortunately due to prior commitments he was not able to attend and compete these accomplishments not only highlight the individual

005talents of our students but also reflect the quality of our healthc care Education and Leadership development in our schools we extend our help our heartfelt congratulations to these students and express our sincere gratitude to their adviser Mrs Olsen for her guidance and support their success brings honor to duth and inspires future generations of healthc Care Professionals in our community congratulations and I believe maybe one or two of them would like to uh share a little bit about their experiences so I'll I'll let them decide Bren Dan yes I didn't know I was GNA have to talk today so I didn't really come prepared but I'll just make this up as I go this program really helped me see what I wanted to do in my future for a job and whatnot and I had amazing

006instructor Miss Olsen who helped me all along the way throughout the years and it really got me looking to like what I want to do and I enrolled in the EMT course at Lakes period college and I'll be starting that this semester hopefully that'll I'll pass and that can be my new job then excellent thank you I'm Evan bolus and this experience really helped me choose nursing as a career that I want to pursue and from it I got my CNA license so I've been work working at a Centra for the past six months as CNA getting loads of experience and I have to thank Miss Olsson for all of that uh I'm tal cbok and I want to thank Miss olon for everything she's done for us uh she helped me get my CNA

007license as well I'm also working at asentia Health as a CNA on on the 15th floor and it's just helped me choose my nursing to to nursing and so I just want to thank her a lot this course has helped me a lot with my confidence so has Miss son um and the other teacher Miss Tracy um and it's made me show uh the love for the healthcare field and I just want to say I'm Kim Olen and I've been in the district for quite some time now and I think the support of our school board the support of our community the support of other instructors really just make a positive influence of on our our students and how they're going to be taking care of us so we're going to invest in them and

008we're going to do everything we can I'm just so proud of them and they know we're from duth when we show up um we look very professional and we act professional and um they work really hard they put extended amount of hours in um they found things that they really wanted to excel in or experiment with and it was just an exciting time and I thank you for your support quick okay bonding well they're getting their picture ready too I I know that Kim Olen was our go find teacher of the year in I think it was the covid year because I remember watching it on on the video and again as a a colleague of Kim's for over the years you know the competitions that our students go to and compete in these fields

009I know that the community doesn't always understand how that competition happens and Kim and I would often run into each other at National tournaments because I'd be there with speech kids and debate kids and she was there with the medical health Team kids and they knew each other because they go to the same school so it's always been delightful and Kim is right um over the years uh whenever you've gone to Community Partners and said that you're bringing students to yeah we want to go and shake their hand bringing students to the National tournaments they're more than willing to partner with us for the money to bring them there so we'll bring them back in so we can say thank you e e e you know so again Schoolboard members you know it that's that's

010what we put that's why we put the time up here everybody says how can you be on the Schoolboard how can you deal with all that well the community doesn't always get to see all of the great things we do and it just lifts us and it makes this job become the job we want because it is whether it's I know you're attending holiday concerts um all over our city we're visiting schools we're seeing such great things and there are challenges we know that but we also know that there's some incredible things so I I really appreciate the work that assistant superintendent bonds does and our communication specialist Adele to really call out who we can who we can bring before the board next month so thank you well I guess there's an agenda to

011follow to okay um next on our agenda is the audit presentation thank you I'm so excited excited good evening again um I'm Simone zunich and I'm the Executive Director of Business Services and I'd like to introduce Michelle swaboda she's one of the partners from Whitley um she and her team performed our audit and it was a lot of work but uh they always do an amazing job and she's here to discuss the highlights with you great are you going to pull up the PowerPoint let's see they give here we've been having a lot of struggles in technology in this well I passed out the PowerPoint to the board members this packet so there we go so I can get started but thank you for having me so this is just to go through um basically

012the highlights of our audit for the year end of June 30th 2024 so if we go to the next page I'll give it a second so our responsibility when we are performing the audit is to issue an opinion on the basic financial statements to report on compliance and internal cont controls over financial reporting report on compliance and internal controls over Federal programs under uniform guidance and report on compliance with the Minnesota statutes that were required to test so next page the results of our audit we gave an unmodified opinion on the basic financial statements which is a clean opinion the internal control findings over financial reporting we do have um two material weaknesses which we've had for quite a few years running mostly the the first one is related to audit adjustments reconciliation of significant

013accounts we do um help the district um make some pretty significant adjustments in the areas of mostly State um Aid receivables and revenue and the salaries payable which is a pretty significant um dollar ount and a pretty significant adjustment and then quite a few other just U miscellaneous adjustments that we help the district with but we do have to report that um and then the other one is financial statement presentation and disclosure um essentially because we the big packet that you received those are your financial statements your responsibility you're responsible for um those financials and the preparation of those but we do that for you um but because of that we do report a material weakness over internal controls however we did um test several of your federal programs this year we every year we

014have to make a selection of federal programs to test and we did not find any non-compliance or internal control findings over your federal programs the three programs we tested this year were um Title One your Esser uh funds and then also your um Food Service program so your your federal dollars under your um Child Nutrition program and then we also look at uh Minnesota statutes and we did not have any non-compliance with Minnesota statutes next slide so when we take a look at the general fund itself as you can see this is the unassigned fund balance over time which is essentially anything that's not restricted assigned or nonspendable you can see this year the amount did go um from a slightly negative unassigned fund balance in 2023 up to 1,11 15,000 in 2024 um I

015did want to note and and Simone is going to comment on this um the 100 1 million 115 positive unassign unassigned fund balance did come from the fact that you approved and we did move $5 million from your assigned fund balance in 2024 over to unassigned um otherwise you would have had about a $4 million um unassigned uh deficit unassigned fund balance in your general fund so I think um s did you want to comment on that yes so um thank you Michelle so you know we are uh have put a recommendation forth for the five million reduction um in FY 26 so these numbers support that reduction amount um like Michelle said had we not moved the 5 million from the um assigned fund balance we would have been in the negative over 4

016million and also our general fund expenditures were 4.9 million over Revenue so that's why we had to move money so that $5 million Mark is um actually right on where we do need to make our budget um adjustment for next year for FY 26 and didn't we see that in your presentation in truth and Taxation this that same 49 for for m900 some dollars somewhere um no okay yes I know I know what you're talking about yes we were um our budget this year is 4.7 million over yes you are correct great thank you so next page and this is a little hard to read on screen but essentially this breaks out all of your um fund balances basically the nonspendable amounts the restricted amounts the assigned amounts and unassigned so the middle section is

017all your restricted amounts so these dollars have to be spent on um the the description of the restricted items on the side so you're restricted fund balances in this is general fund at the end of the year was uh 6.1 million which was an increase of about 1.4 million over 2023 and then the next section is your assigned fund balance and this is where you can see the movement of that $5 million there was a little bit of of other dollars and moving out of an out of assigned also but essentially the $5 million you can see you had that money um from sale of property in a prior year that you had moved into assigned and you moved that out during the year so you ended up with a ending ass assigned fund balance

018of 2.3 million compared to 17.9 in the prior year so total general fund fund balance at the end of the year at the bottom you can see1 19 m619 th000 which is a decrease of 2.9 Million over um 2023 and we can see on um well next page we're just going to talk about a few of the changes and then we'll look at the budget to actual for the general fund um but essentially as Simone was saying and you'll see on the next slide your Revenue was over budget um but then of course the other side your expenditures were also over budget the biggest piece of both of those um the revenue additional state and federal funding for special education and then expenditures were over budg um mostly due to special education and transportation costs

019and some um capital projects that did not get reimbursed in fy2 so next page you can see the actual results of operations in the general fund um so at the top as you can see the over budget of 8.4 million in the revenue side which we just talked about the expenditure side over budget of 12 million so essentially if you go down in the the middle column middle of the page your deficiency of revenue revenue over expenditures um so this is that $4.9 million um deficit that you had in general however you did have a few at the bottom other financing sources the biggest item is um sale of capital assets 1.7 million which then brings your deficit in the general fund fund up to um act your change in fund balance excuse me in

020your general fund a negative 2.9 Million um to bring you down to that total fund balance at the end of the year of1 million 619 so next page will be your food service fund and essentially if you look at the top um the the call final further column over you can see you were pretty close um on your Revenue as far as budget goes just a slight slight under budget um your expenditures were also under budget um $720,000 so you did actually have a positive change in fund balance in your food service fund right in the middle of the page of $77,000 your total fund balance at the end of the year at the the middle of the page also uh 2.9 Million and as you can see at the bottom there's a little bit

021that's not SP nonspendable the rest is in uh restricted so all those dollars are restricted for food service your community service fund here you can see your revenue is over budget 463,000 this is mostly related to local local and County revenue over budget your expenses um it's showing under budget I apologize it's actually you were or sorry under budget you were actually a little bit over budget in expenses $71,000 um but as you can see in the middle of the page you had a change in your fund balance of a negative uh $96,000 you did do a transfer of $55,000 um for a total fund balance for the year right in the middle of 2.2 million and as you can see at the bottom all of those dollars are also restricted for Community Services your

022capital projects fund so this fund um nothing budgeted in this fund but you can see you did have revenue of 73,000 this is all investment income Revenue um that's the the total um type of Revenue that you had in this fund but you did have expenditures of 6.1 million of of which um is your big capital projects that you've been working on for a deficiency in Revenue over expenses of 5.4 million which is essentially you receive those dollars to spend on those capital projects now you're spending them down so that should not be a big surprise so if you come down to the the the middle middle of the page towards the bottom you do still have um $6.8 million in that fund um to spend and that is all restricted for your long-term uh

023facilities M maintenance your debt service fund at the top you can see your um Revenue was over budget about 1.9 million um your tax revenue was actually over budget and then your expenditures on the other side were also over budget and that was essentially your principal payments were um budgeted lower than what you actually ended up paying so in the middle of the page um a deficiency of Revenue over expenses of um $82,000 and then here you can see right below that um your bond refunding which we'll take a look at here I think it might be the next page um the sale of the bonds 2.1 21,780 and then the refunding of the bonds 20 1,285 th000 to come to a total um total net change in fund balance of 380 a deficit of

024$380,000 and fund balance at the end of the year of$ 2.3 million of which is all restricted so then your outstanding debt at the end of the year so as you can see um so this is what happened during the year you can see your new debt which is essentially your um your new Bond of 21, 78,000 of which if you go down to under your certificates of participation you can see the the last two bonds the refunding certificates those two as you can see have a zero balance at the end of the year those are the two bonds that um were refunded so if we to take a look then at the next column total principal paid if we take out the refunding bonds from the total principal paid um just overall not including

025that you did pay um 22,400,000 on principal during the year not taking those um refundings into consideration um so that's kind a PR pretty quick summary um just as a a quick reminder so I am um actually no longer the partner on the audit this year I am Consulting with our new partner Rob Gano um on the audit for this year I've been helping him out Zach Shar sharp as the audit manager um Rob has extensive uh 30 years experience in um governments especially school districts so you're in very good hands with him um but I just wanted to to point that out but I'm here tonight um because I've been working with you for a long time so all right is there any any questions on anything I would just like to point out

026um thank you Michelle this this she does this in 15 minutes but it's literally six months worth of work um many many hours and um we had some late night adjust or late adjustments um after our audit was finalized and then we went ahead and made some additional um ex we had some additional extensions to do um mde was s very supportive and we got it done and I want to thank Sheila Stevens who took point on our audit this year and did a fantastic job and um I also would like to point out that yes Michelle you know said that with the transfer of the $5 million that was key to keep us out of the negative in the unassigned fund balance um and it does support our dollar amount that we are asking

027for a reduction for next year but the biggest thing is our um sod our statutory operating debt percentage was at 14.78% it went down to 10.71 so by that $5 million it reduced it by at least four points so it it's just a trend we cannot continue so that is why it's it's it's crucial that we start correcting um our budget because if we keep taking four points in two and a half years we'll be in statutory operating debts with at 2.5% no we we don't want it to go down you know I want it to go up so um uh I think the math supports um any decisions that are made tonight and um we just really want to keep an eye on that sod percentage so I'm happy it's still in the double

028digits but um our decisions going forward will help support keeping it going up members of I have just have a quick question um followup from page three um where we went over the material weaknesses which I know aren't a huge deal um this looks like a really great clean audit but I'm just wondering about the financial statement presentation and disclos disclosure I don't remember seeing that one in the past am I just not remembering that or is that pretty common one to have is that a pretty common relationship between a school district and a auditor to have that kind of um assistance and what you were talking about yeah yeah preparing the financial statements for the client um you have had this for quite a few years and really what it comes down to is

029the the audit adjustments and the financial statement presentation for us kind of go hand inand like if you were to um at some point you know had everything adjusted and we came in and all we're doing is auditing ending balances not making any adjustments we might rethink that financial statement presentation but we have to make those to get your financial statements to present fairly so that's a that is a piece of it and that does play into it too um but it is common for Auditors to prepare financial statements for the clients perfect thank you member Mike cell and then superintendent meas thank you I recognize that this's a lot of hard work and many hours and my question was also um just trying to get better understanding about the material weaknesses and so the

030one prior to that the audit adjustments and Reconciliation you may have already touched upon it um but the definition of material weaknesses is that a classification that mde like what no that that actually comes out of auditing standards so there's essentially um as part of our requirements when we do the audit we have to look at deficiencies are there deficiencies and then are they significant deficiencies or do they elevate to a material weakness um and materiality is a a dollar component it's something we calculate um when we are doing the audit it's kind of where we the level of testing we do the adjustments that we make are are pretty material to the financial statements so that's why it elevates up to a material weakness so yes it's straight out of auditing standards so you're

031going to see that anywhere anybody uses um Gap financials got it okay and then it was very detailed um audit and audit report um but when I hear the things that we have a clean audit and when we're going through the numbers there wasn't any glaring discrepancies like this is all very good and supports the the good work that our our teams do here is that correct in my understanding yes we know and the team knows we're going to make those material adjustments once we do that we've got good numbers in front of us so and we're able to um audit those numbers you know pretty cleanly so yeah you know um we know that there's when we give an opinion we give an opinion that there's there's no material M statements that's not exactly

032how it reads but we're not getting down to the penny right there could be a little bit that we're off but overall that's going to be a pretty small dollar we're very confident that the numbers are are good numbers at this point thank you so much superintendent Magus thanks and actually member Mikel kind of phrase things that the way that I was uh thinking about basically um you know if you were giving kind of the elevator speech to just a general member of the public about where we are financially what would you say and you kind of alluded to it but if there's more you w like had and then also I'd like to just say uh two things very appreciative that the the accuracy of executive director zunich in the forecast that that we

033really need to reduce by five million was right on the nose and I think that that shows uh a great deal of of skill and also thanks for your the partnership with uh whipley we've been with you for many years and really appreciate your dedication and and the the work that's been done great thank you very much y anything else you like if somebody were just asking about duth public schools you know how are they doing finan what would you say I personally could not answer that question right just to the general public because I work for the the school board and everything we do is confidential so just saying right you know but you're asking me as a school board as the superintendent so yeah you really got to keep an eye on that

034general fund um fund balance for sure I think that's a big thing going forward because you really don't want that to slip down back in into um a deficit however um the numbers themselves you know they are what they are right we're not we're not worried that there's um you know discrepancy big discrepancies anywhere in the in the final numbers we think they're good numbers it's just keeping an eye on that general fund um fund balance so like on that line of keeping an eye out how you know this is what what is this how much money is this this is like 39 million right or is it more you know and we get constant I mean I've been on the board now seven years and we get get all of this information every year

035we get even more information we get training on the different funds and the different streams and the different codes and all of that so then how do you what is the process for kind of managing the budget and monitoring um our expenditures against the budget when there's like 2,000 employees in this district and we're all spending money and you know so how does what where is that how do how do you you know so yeah is there a is is that what you use your um future forecast money for or yes your whole team in your offices of adding all those codes it's to balance kind of the process for budgeting and monitoring expenses correct um you know we can start with the revenue I know I can I have a finite number of what

036I know our Revenue will be I know what our basic formula will be we take a good average of our ADM and we forecast from there um mde has a wonderful document it's called the whatif revenue calculator and I can go in and put in what I think our um enrollment is going to be and it literally Works through many tabs and tells you what your Revenue will be based on how much uh ADM you'll have so that is our most accurate document so we start with our revenue and the bottom line is now going forward we simply have to match our expenses to our revenues and um so then we take actual how you know what our I I love to look at last year and prior year and look at what we spent

037in salaries and benefits um all of that tells a story um we will have off years where you know we had a program that needed an additional 10 people or whatnot um and so then we go through the process of saying okay to match our revenues this is where we need to land and with our forecasting document um it's terrific and we take our Levy information we put all of that in there we put our ADM information in there and we start doing the work and um we break it down even by object code it's pretty detailed and um we go through our state our federal our Levy um any additional grants that we're going to have and I will um you know really a lot of respect to whipley because they also audited the

038Esser funds which was a lot and I'm highly anticipating another audit from mde and we've already had two and it's um they're very complex and they want to see a purchase order that supports every invoice who approved everything what code did we use I mean it's it's it's intensive so um I give thanks to Whitley that we've already performed one Esser audit um they were able to justify it but I assume that we'll be getting another one from the Department of Education so and an answer to your questions we use a lot of historical data we have great um calculators through the Department of Education and then we take that information and I put it into our forecast and we try and get as close as possible um things can happen um our Revenue did

039come in a lot higher but we ended up getting a nice cross subsidy for our special education so that can skew you know change it I don't want to use the word skew it can change our numbers so um we're just going to be really mindful of our spending going forward um the the budget report that I bring to HR Business Services every month if you look to the far right there's a percent there so like by June we should be halfway through our budget at 50% so I keep a close eye on that and um our expenditures can be higher in the spring for purchase services and supplies because people come back and they start they put in all their contracts that should all now kind of slow down and then that's when I

040come uh I bring a revised budget to you as I did last year we had some unanticipated costs so we have to bring those back in there and then the Auditors as you see they they look at the revised budget we have to send them a copy of that so what you're approving goes to our audit and as part of our file so and and so thank you Sheila is still here too and I often visit the budget department just to say hi when I'm in the in the building and you're you're you know your team is is strong and I really hope with how we move forward too that um oftentimes we are the leanest in some of our most needed areas so um our payroll is an incredible group of people working hard

041and we support them too all of them I'd agree great great great team Simone is is a great leader of a great team and and uh it's it's a very cohesive group as well very high performing but also when you when you go there they're very friendly you wouldn't necessarily think they put the fun in finance but they do well they always have the best goodies on their table when you go in there's always something really delicious when I'm there so and it's the most decorated part of our building as well so if you want I decorating ideas that's who you go to but thank you Michelle right again for for coming and and and sharing with the audit as you have so many years and we will not see you then next year at

042this table oh most likely no it will be Zach no uh probably Rob well robber Zach I'm not disappearing though I'm I'm around I bet you're not yeah I'll still call to and Rosie you have your light on so I do too as well as uh member eer does so I think hers was before mine okay so it's member eer um and just so that we're clear when we talk about having to do those fund transfers and having that $5 million that is something that the district the superintendent the school board the administration those are planned occurrences so these aren't in es that are just popping up and all of a sudden we're running around the district service center hair on fire saying oh no oh no we need $5 million we knew that once

043um covid W wound down and the federal government pulled back on um funding for public schools we knew that we were going to have to take a step down approach to our budget so these were conscious decisions made by the administration and by the school board to have that step down so that we didn't have to just come in and cut tens of millions of dollars immediately we saw that all over the state um and much larger districts that had to make much more significant Cuts so we knew this um coming into this audit and as we've moved forward these are calculated decisions that we've made um to keep our district in the best Financial Health as possible at times you have to pull money out of savings in order to support and those are

044conscious decisions that we made as to making sure that the student experience in the classroom we keep that as authentic and as intact as we can as we work through these very difficult decisions of budget um reallocation and redistribution so I just want to be clear on that that these were calculated and thoughtful decisions that we made we understood that we were going to take a hit our s so was going to change um but those were decisions that we made consciously and we have a long-term plan for the Financial Health of this District so while we have some material um weaknesses and while we have some money that we've pulled out we understand that we need to keep healthy fund balance that we need to make sure that we are operating with our Sod

045at a healthy place so I just want to make sure that that's clear to the public so thank you really appreciate that member eer and I I was um one of the things I was just going to touch on was just that that you know we have three new board members so you're going through your first audit you know audit and truth and Taxation but um uh they were very thoughtful and very hard decisions over the the last few years that have been made on refinancing bonds and you know the the many different things that have been talked about and and so um you know it's it it is sometimes as a board member you need to be thinking even though the decisions might be hard right now you know it is for the long-term

046success of our district if you will the financial success of our district so uh thank you uh for bringing that up U member eer I just wanted to say I've enjoyed having your work with us over the years and uh always have enjoyed uh this presentation uh and um I I always appreciate the auditor's results page um where you really kind of summarize um and um I we've said a lot about the kind of first couple items but I also uh just really appreciate the last two items about the internal control findings over Federal programs and then um non-compliance with Minnesota statutes and and that testing I I think again it just shows the transparency of our district uh as well as the great work of this department in terms of being mindful uh of

047uh following State statutes and and um uh all of the hopefully um continued Federal programs that um we we deal with right now so uh appreciate your work um but also just appreciate um um uh how you have worked um with our district over the years and I I also appreciated you um mentioning the background of uh is it Gus um the P Rob and and that he 30 years working with other school districts as well and that's I think really important to know that we are working with an auditing firm that has a lot of school district experience and um that might not always be the case of districts that are being audited so uh thank you yeah thank you I've enjoyed working with the district so yeah and you are in good hands

048and we have a lot of um School District partners and other Auditors in The Firm my focus is just being reshift it so thank you thank you next on our agenda number next on our agenda number seven is our superintendent report and underneath the superintendent is first our reports from our student Schoolboard Representatives then it's the superintendent report and then it's just a a review of our our meetings and events coming up in the next week so I'll turn it over to superintendent magus first of all I'd like toks to first of all I'd like to say thanks to our two student Representatives Lissa Miller from Denfeld and Mia petronis from East both have been Exemplar in in their leadership and um before they begin their results we have just a little recognition uh we

049have uh two duth public school bags but the bags are not empty because it's not that it's a festive time of year and uh to remember your time on on the uh School Board as student Representatives we have uh duth Public School polo shirts for you and just wanted to say thank you and let's uh let's give a little round of applause for mariss thank [Applause] you I would say um both Representatives uh every year we're we're we're impressed and every year I think wow you know this what a what a great group we have this year and this year is is is no different and uh I think about some of the work that I've done with both of you and uh been very impressed in thinking about some of the work we're doing

050with uh probably expanding what student leadership looks like and hoping that you'll you'll help serve in that capacity a little bit as we uh develop that programming in the course of the next few weeks so um again thank you and thank you for inviting me to the student leadership group uh previously and for inviting me again for a second round very very appreciative and um looking forward to your reports but here is your your gift thank you so much for this gift um I have a couple things to cover at East um this week is winter week um each day we have a dress up theme and some activities that go along with it this morning we had a free hot cocoa bar in our cafeteria tomorrow tomorrow we have holiday trivia during lunch and

051Thursday evening we have a movie night and a holiday story time in the library so we have lots of fun things to celebrate the last few days before we go on holiday break along with that we have a winter reading contest that was started by our librarian Miss Kettle it's a schoolwide reading contest where everyone who reads four books by the end of February is entered into a drawing for a gift card to a bookstore ah earlier this morning East invited fifth graders from nearby elementary schools to watch a holiday concert where several of the music groups from the music department performed this is our second year doing this and it's a great way to introduce the incoming middle schoolers to the great music programs that they'll have the opportunity to experience um the performance

052today was a shortened version of the holiday concert that will take place this Friday at 7 o'clock at the deck Denfeld and East um have a new catering collaboration it's called Hunter and the Hound and it's from the CTE culinary classes they did pre-orders for pie during Thanksgiving and this holiday season they are selling various types of cookies and Breads and lastly I want to say thank you again I'm very sad to say that this is my last meeting but I just want to thank all of you for being so kind and so welcoming tomorrow we have our election for the new student rep and all of five of the candidates are very qualified and lovely people so I'm very excited for you all to have a fresh face in this seat next month and

053I also want to apologize that I have to sneak out in a little bit but student government has um a decorating party for for our assembly tomorrow so i' like to make it make it to that but once again thank you all I've really enjoyed my time member ller Kemp no no okay so tomorrow you have a lunch with five um potential School Board next student School Board rep and you'll vote on that I know that East holds elections and so does the vote happen before break or when you get back or yes so tomorrow we um the junior class is who vote on the the new student representative so each candidate has a couple minutes to do a presentation a speech a video and then from there the junior class votes and by the

054end of the day we will know who the student representative is yes we're very excited about it yes and thanks and one thing that I uh want to say that I extend to uh all of our Schoolboard reps but uh the two of you in particular this year if there's any help you need with anything as far as um scholarship letters or or letters of support for anything that you're taking as far as next steps uh be sure and let us know because we'd be more than glad to to support you in the way that you supported us so our superintendent report uh for today uh We've yeahor I I just always like to remind our school board members uh student school board members that nsba has a a scholarship um that's available you can

055to apply for uh that is only for student school board members so uh I know we'll send out reminders and I think the deadline is either February 1st I think but um so um yeah we we encourage you we've had um they only uh recognize two folks but um we've had uh student uh School Board reps get uh get it so thank you yeah again thank you I also want to say uh that this is our our last school board uh meeting of this year and and so uh very appreciative of the people who have served in various roles in different committee running and chair lold for everything that you've been doing um I just want to say thank you for uh the work that that each of you have done in your roles and

056um as we begin we are talking about many different things tonight uh but our mission and vision are always clear and we have to use those as ruers in the work that we do our mission is that every student every day will be empowered with learning opportunities for growth creativity and curiosity and preparation for their future and a global community and our vision is that duth public schools provides an academically engaging safe and inclusive environment with high expectations and reasonable I'm sorry responsible use of resources and that is uh one of the themes we talk about quite a bit tonight and our core values we went over earlier but uh learning Excellence Equity collaboration and belonging are all important to us our topics we went through the student reports uh and I know Miss Miller

057wanted to be here as well but uh she is driving to uh Minneapolis and and taking a flight someplace and and uh actually driving for the first time by your I believe which is also quite a leadership opportunity when you're of that age um anyway our I also want to talk a moderate amount about about our budget reduction realignment update we've had a lot on finance already tonight it seems to be the theme uh short very short update on where we are with some of our solar projects and our legislative update as well and then anything else that you have questions on but I would say that uh one of the things that I've really really enjoyed during the season is um a lot of the celebrations that we've had in the schools I today

058I was at the uh the Elementary uh holiday concert at um Lester Park and seeing the kindergarteners and first graders just singing their little hearts out it was it was uh just incredibly uh cute and and um engaging and sweet experience and also getting to see the parents engaging there too but I've been to uh quite a few concerts I was at uh Den feld's concert um last night and looking forward to East concert on uh Friday and I invite the community as well as far as our budget reduction and realignment this is something we've talked a great deal about and just to preface uh the vote that you know later on the last agenda item is actually on budget budget adjustment and realignment and we'll talk more about that but um seeking a motion

059from the board to move forward but just a reminder that this is not without context and I'm going to go through the this because we've shared it quite a bit uh previously but our guiding change this is what the road map that we've used for the choices we've made it's provide provided context for our work and I would really um suggest to us as an administrative team and then also the board as we as we do future major projects that we really consider the use and continued use of of a guiding change document because I think it really serves as a strong Rudder for us our Focus statement was achieving necessary budget adjustments while aligning resources to the district priority uh and positioning to us to make effective decisions now and into the future that's

060why we're doing this why are we doing this why do we have have this we've talked about it quite a bit but elimination of the pandemic relief funds inflation costs not keeping up with State funding uh new unfunded legislative mandates requiring resources we were talking about those just today just some things as far as added costs and some things with with uh safe and sick time things that are morally really good things for our workers uh and for the people that that serve our children uh but but also costly and if they're not funded it becomes uh difficult with us uh we also have some ongoing effects of employee contract contract settlements we knew that we wanted to have some adjustments in teacher pay and things of that nature that does impact our bottom line

061there is an investment when you raise uh raise the the rate of pay uh but we thought that was important to invest in our Educators uh we've had relatively stable enrollment in fact our enrollment has gone up a bit uh this past year uh or for the for the financial year of of 26 we have a budget deficit of uh 7.5 million and actually that's that um deficit is dependent on the intended reductions of for this year so basically we have to reduce by $2.6 million this year 2.5 million so that we have 5 million Les to left to reduce in this past year we we reduced remember that that uh Pac-Man like Pi chart that we saw uh the basically 86% of our our uh 86% of our budget is staff and benefits and

062this year we made most of the reductions out of other areas so unfortunately much of the reduction this year does come from a variety of Staff throughout the entire organization and it's what I've told everybody in the beginning of all of our budget meetings uh when with sites is this is not easy for us it's hard to ask people to continue to do more with less and uh that we're just trying to make the best choices at this time so again we're looking at about $5 million reduction for next year uh but we needed to make sure that we continued supporting the areas that we said we we were going to do including our new high school and middle school schedules and uh all the work we're doing with our literacy efforts with the read

063act and our letters training and other things we also know and heard about through the MPR article today but we've known it all along that the costs of special education services are rising throughout the country the needs of our students uh are are significant and we are obligated and have the moral and ethical responsibility to meet those needs we have been able to uh use this year as uh member eer mentioned we've had a stair stepping down rather than a full financial cliff in one year we've done it over two years time and so that was uh something we did with uh unassigned this the fund balances that we have the way we when we went through this there were certain things that we didn't uh want to rules that we didn't want to break

064that we wanted to make sure that we're holding true to we wanted to make sure of course that we weren't going to break any laws with our reductions we weren't going to violate board policy or regulations and we also have contracts that are legal binding documents we can't go against contracts and say hey everybody you're going to teach 10% more or 20% more so we can save money we also are uh not going to go into statutory operating debt we're going to avoid being going below 8% of the fund balance that as we've talked about and then we also want to make sure that uh with the referendum that we had a year ago last November uh that funded things related to social emotional learning mental health the new high school schedule and uh strengthening

065our academic supports of intervention that we weren't going to make ra major reductions in that area in those areas that was one of the suggestions we heard you know why don't we just not do the new high school schedule but uh we we uh promised our taxpayers that if they voted for the referendum that we would follow through with these things and not make changes we also uh have been working very hard to make sure we have strong stakeholder involvement and I was um actually pretty proud when we were in our our last Labor Management meeting um the uh president of the teachers U assoc found teachers um Union said Ethan Fischer was saying that this is really uh the most transparent more most inclusive process he's seen in his years of of um many

066years of budget reduction and uh part of that is due to the strong uh Partnerships that we have in Labor Management we also want to make sure that we have a balanced budget for this next year that we uh use a very transparent process I think that uh things have been incredibly transparent we have a new um website with with information with questions and answers and all the graphs and basically the it's hard to hard to say that we don't put information out there and that we don't make it as uh digestible as possible but I think that third bullet is really that if there was one thing we had tattooed on us uh as far as what we needed to do was prioritize and protect classroom needs as much as possible when it came

067to identifying uh whether in our plans what we're looking at we really wanted to try to avoid the the impact on our classrooms and and then uh we need to make sure that we continue to align our resources it's not just about reduction but it's about realignment and making sure that we're holding true to our efforts to uh support every student to advance equity and to improve systems we also want to make sure uh s Simone and the rest of the team has worked hard to make sure that we have uh forecasted baled balanced budgets and we talk about budget forecasting uh the work that she that has been done by that department to hear that we were spot on with the $5 million as as a Mark I think that that exemplifies uh that

068the work being done is is very strong we also want to make sure that we're examining all Legacy practices with a lens of fiscal accountability just because we've done something for a long time and we've quote quote unquote always done it that way doesn't mean that we should continue doing that way if we can find uh fiscally responsible ways of improving things and then we also want to make sure that we're uh continuing to protect the the district's physical health by seeking efficiencies and identifying new resource funding such as grants investment opportunities lobbying and other other efforts so tonight uh we're asking the board uh to make a motion and this is suggested language you can also find this suggested language uh in your red folder uh so we would ask that hopefully member later

069during during our our action items time would make a motion uh similar to this but basically what this is saying it's we we're not laying out the detail of every position that's being reduced here tonight uh we think it's it's important through the assignment transfer committee and the work that we do in the month of January that we identify and let people know uh properly we don't want people finding out that their position might be reduced by listening to a school board meeting and so it's important for us to to follow procedure but we've helped keep you a breast of where we are in our latest uh work in that regard we also know that things are are often in a state of of uh flux between now in springtime just because we have uh

070we might have some at some point some some displacement from positions we will have displacement from positions soon after those those displacements would happen in the second half of January probably the last week of January and then right after that February 1 we get the announcements of everybody who's retiring and so we'll be able to to look at mitigating some of the the uh the factors as far as who's who's been reduced we also know that that we'll be doing a lot of lobbying through this Springtime and I'll talk more about that and if our funding increases in certain areas or if enrollment goes up that means that we might be able to uh reduce where we're making reductions so that is something that we'll be doing uh in very close partnership uh but this

071is uh what we're we're uh suggesting as far as potential language then uh onto the the Solar projects update uh just some of the other items we have solar projects and um our our legislative platform solar projects we're continuing with the Lincoln Park project uh we have a memorandum of understanding with the city to move forward and we are also planning when the window opens for uh application that we will be putting in our proposal in January we've heard that it will be looked at very favorably due to to uh the land that we have and where it's facing and also the the public um public aspect of having it very visible as you're coming into town the partnership with students there are so many good things related to that Lincoln Park uh project and

072I'm very hopeful for it last month I talked about the Stow Elementary project that that was what we were intending was to use our solar for schools Grant uh for Stow uh but we actually had our structural engineer re review the roof and when we think about efforts to be more environmentally conscious one of the things that the uh that has happened in statute is they've increased the uh significantly increased the amount of insulation that needs to go in roofs so when we are doing the work on the roof we actually have to add a ton of in in not a literal ton but a figurative ton of insulation into the roof and with that added weight uh it the the uh roof could not handle the solar panels at Stow so um we actually

073began looking very very hard and I want to say how much I appreciate the facilities team Brian Brown has worked really hard on this and Simone in finding and also Teresa Severance as well um but but basically we have a second plan and that's to use uh this site and as I mentioned at our our um HR business meeting we have some money left from the bonding that was for construction of this this particular building and there's some money left over and we're hoping to do two things with it one would be to build an additional Bay on the transportation area because we have some really large heavy equipment that that uh needs space and needs to be out of the elements uh that would be about $900,000 and we have about 6,000 600,000 left

074after that and we're proposing that that be used as a match with the um the solar for schools funding so the we could have a sold project here the great thing about that would be that we would not have to dip into our general fund and I think that that's been something that that we've been been trying to weigh both that we we were making budget reductions and we have fin fiscal responsibility but uh I'm really happy that um executive director zunich found a possibility for us to use funds that can't be used for anything else can't be used for building at the DNT it can't be used for uh furbishing another area it has to be used on construction here if we're going to use it and it doesn't come out of our general

075fund so that is something that we're we're uh looking forward to as a potential for the solar project that we plan to uh have in by the deadline as far as legislative updates and we've talked a lot about lobbying lobbying lobbying uh we want to make sure that we're ready for lobbying and we have our platform we're going to be finalizing and voting on our platform January so that will be uh something that um our lobbyist Jeff Anderson has worked on us with and then uh also we plan to attend the amsd association of metropolitan school districts 2025 leg legisla preview on January 10th there are a lot of Representatives at that meeting uh the governor is invited uh other other folks and quite often might be something that would be good for a board

076member or two or or who um whomever is chair um at that point to to attend and then also we have a work session scheduled uh the duu Schoolboard work session with our legislators it will take place on uh January 17th and so that's the date we're looking at there and then finally I think you know we all oh January 7th I actually had it I had it as the 7th in my report and then I was like no that couldn't be it it must be the 17th and uh thank thanks for Apple watches and attentive administrative assistants who give give a hint from behind uh but it's actually the 7th and then we will look forward to uh planning on uh participating in very robust lobing throughout the springtime including the duth and Superior

077St Louis uh County days and I we would ask that any board members who are interested in attending the the Deluth St Louis County days it's it's um I think it's one of our most effective places to do lobbying and I know sometimes we realize that there's a little bit of cost when it comes to making those efforts and making those trips but generally uh the the efforts pay off a hundredfold in funding that we're able to obtain for our our schools so I think it would be very worthwhile for us to consider the uh Del St count County days it's in February and I want to say the 12th and 13th yes the 12th and 13th we will be at that time we will be presenting not only our uh legislative priorities but we

078also have a join a group effort that we're making between uh the um University of Minnesota duth Lake Superior College college of St Scholastica Apex the city of duth and the Chamber of Commerce related to Workforce Development and Career Technical education we saw our students here earlier uh showing some of the amazing things they're doing with getting into uh nursing positions and respiratory health and everything else in our schools and we want to make sure that we are able to keep those those um those funding streams and also those those career Pathways uh alive and perfect time for the uh connection to be lost because that is the end of my presentation any questions member L Camp no questions thank you excellent presentation I just wanted to throw out while you were throwing out Lobby

079dates um that the NBA's uh Lobby day jointly with MAA the superintendent is on um Monday March 10th so if you want to put that date on and then the legislative updates um there's phone calls Friday during the legislative session that anyone can join for half an hour and really good use of your time but thank you for all the other other updates um I just have a clarifying question I think I just missed it when you were going through your solar um I think it was the first bullet point where you're talking about um you're talking about the Lincoln Park and you said something about you know theou with the city and then you said something about some kind of Grant fit or or Pur with Grant with Minnesota power so it's a uh

080partnership with Minnesota Power I don't it's not I don't think it's technically a grant but it's B basically they have opportunity for partnering where uh what they do is they use our land to build the arrays and they rent our land so the money we you get get from that uh benefits the district greatly and and then the so there's U some some money that comes back to the district from solar uh for this and it's also a great opportunity for the district to uh be able to buy back electricity at a fixed rate so we can uh basically buy our electricity based on today's uh rate for electricity rather than future rates when we assume the cost of electricity is going to go up significantly so it's a a really good value to the

081district member La Kim yeah could you clarify um number three under the solo projects about and I'm sorry you you gave a lot of information about the 600,000 how much we're going to be using for solar versus uh other projects that we need to use it for right so we have uh and I'll look at Simone for a second but we have approximately uh 1, 660,000 I believe and so we'd be putting about 950 is towards uh the uh extra Bay on the um on the transportation building that would also include uh the different reservoirs needed for salt and sand as you can probably see with the hill coming up we always knew it was a little slippery uh but we need to make sure that we have those those uh receptacles for that uh

082so basically about about a million dollars a little less than a million dollar would would go towards that and about 600,000 would go towards uh the match for the solar project and I think that they're um you know some people have talked about taking the money that's generated and putting it towards other projects and getting IRAs and things like that I think that we have to be a little careful about that that's that's um not guaranteed money and we've also found that it it takes um is probably going to take up to three years to get the IRA money back as opposed to the year that we had heard about previously we have talked about potentially using some the um the lease money that we would get from Minnesota Power we could consider potentially putting

083that towards towards uh sustainability projects or something like that but that would be something for us to consider and that would be uh the purview of the board uh but something that we would consider exploring and seeing what that would look like also to do it here it has to be considered an educational facility and so we would also need to make a uh have a request with the state that we would say that we're going to use this as this location as uh a um as a educational location as well so we would you know if classes wanted to come up they could use the boardroom here or the closed boardroom or maybe have some outside uh classroom area or something like that but we would have to consider this as educational space here

084at the D DSC which does have some limitations on maybe being able to uh whether or not we could use the the uh Transportation building or the facilities building so there there are limitations that we're working on but I would say um I'm extremely impressed with the work that U Brian Brown and the facilities team has has done because they go above and beyond on this and um you know Teresa s supporting the facilities team and Simone and Anthony putting the curriculum together with with others it's it's um been a joint project see no other questions thank you again superintendent megas with all of the plates and that we're spinning in all of your different areas it's it's really appreciated by board members the work that our District staff and our leaders do and they're

085in the back there too thank you so on our next um item of agenda it is just a review of the schedule of meetings and we have um a little bit of a break because it's holiday although you know the holiday eats up all of our time I know mine is busy with all kinds of things and then we're really just back here in January on January 6th is our annual organizational meeting and just as we approach that meeting too um there's some great webinars on the msba site um that really are great introductions to what that organizational meeting is all about I know that we've been a part of organizational meeting all of us now have some more than others but it's always um um it's always a meeting that's that we want to

086we want to celebrate the start of an year and we want to make sure that we know committees and Patty will be sending out that updated committee list so if you have time between now and January 6th to look at that and to to maybe see and and vision where um you want to you want to lead this year on the board so um make sure you're making some some um thoughtful ideas around that and then we're back at a a um what's not on here is that January 7th that just got placed this might be an old meeting agenda but that January 7th meeting with our legislators just got on there and is it in person and they're visiting us um via their sites or are they here as well it's at our location

087and then some of them will be in person but some weren't able to make it in person so they requested to have a virtual option as well okay and then we have the um parent policy Head Start meeting January 9th and our e eak on Thursday the 9th and so that's a quick turnaround because those committee assignments will come out probably the next day or so after the January 6th so you might be sitting on the Head Start parent policy now and maybe there's a nice transition I think we've talked about that before that maybe if you're on a committee now you continue till January and then then the new board member will take over in February you go both together but just you know play you know just look at your calendars for those

088I those um options as well so that's our update on events coming up that brings us to um report of our standing committees and so assistant superintendent bonds um the committee the whole thank you which was held on uh December 3rd um during that meeting there was two presentations uh an extensive pres presentation was provided by our directors who are in the back um director sparts and director larva provided some insights related to the comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness Plan which is the which was formally known as the world spe Workforce plan it is a detailed document that describes the district goals and strategies for improving academic outcomes for all of our students um it was a thorough presentation by the team they provided that presentation along with uh their curriculum leaders um it was

089it was very insightful so I really encourage the community and others who have not had a chance to read the plan to please uh review the plan that is going to be linked on our district website and if they want to watch the presentation they can hear directly from our our our leader so I want to thank um director sparts and director larver for all of their efforts and the team who worked on it extensively and there was a verbal update provided by Simone zunich and that was our full agenda it was and I was um organizing that handout just the other day when I was getting ready to to make some more room for what was was going to happen tonight and so um just really a shout out and and you're right we'll

090get it on our website we'll link it and um our community needs to to really look at those those um those doc doents those the data and the plan because we do tend to to field emails and hear conversations when we're in public about you know what are we doing and and how are we meeting the needs of our of our students every day how are we improving systems how are we you know maintaining Equity or building our e Equity concerns in our district so thank you and so that makes um going on then we're we're under eight and we're now to be to the human resource and business service so I'll turn it over to chair of that committee U member eer who had a lot to do with everything we heard tonight as

091well thank you thank you and we had a great if not brisk HR Business Services meeting on Tuesday um we started out with no guest presentations and we moved on to our departmental reports we started out with our HR Deport report excuse me and we um had some staffing changes where we saw an increase in the number of c non-certified and certified staff hirings which was great um because we have been short staffed in certain areas so it's great to see um that we are continuing to hire those non-certified staff members we also had some departmental reports from HR um the HR team along with our finance finance department has been doing Site Staffing and budget review meetings all across the districts and they have their last meeting dates that are being finalized on the

09214th of November the members of the human resources team participated in the duth chamber of Commerce diversity equity and inclusion workshops those workshops are important as they provide guidance on how our business Community can support and Empower our indigenous-led organizations and also these workshops give valuable insight into local indigenous culture on the 27th of November HR Personnel participated in quite a few professional development activities that included workplace discrimination awar awareness stress management techniques Conflict Management strategies for staff andent sensitivity awar awareness these trainings equip our staff with the knowledge to um navigate very complex workplace situations and also um continue to make sure that we are a workplace where many people want to come and work as far as our benefits update our benefits Department hosted their first retirement information session that happened on November

09325th and those meetings are geared towards employees who are thinking about retiring in the next year so the benefits Department also process all of our open enrollment submissions and assisted many of our retired employees in navigating their new choices in health insurance through the new Medicare retiree groups so that was um and lastly when we look at our contract negotiations we have just one unit left that's our districtwide and structural Administration Association fondly known fondly known as dwey um we haven't gotten that next that next um negotiation date finalized yet but they are F our last group to negotiate for this cycle moving on from our um HR department summary report we move on to business services we look at our enrollment numbers and as we saw earlier we continue to see a very steady

094enrollment here in the duth public schools we've also increased a little bit and as I talk about every month we have more students attending the district currently right now than what we have budgeted so that's a great place to be um we will see a drop in the student numbers in the District once December happens as we generally see quite a few students graduate at that semester Mark that was our enrollment report moving on to Child Nutrition it was a pretty um straightforward report this month as we just looked at the number of breakfast and lunch that we're serving across the district and again we like to thank the state of Minnesota for providing free um breakfast and lunch for our students we had nothing exciting like a milk order or a pizza order or

095anything fun like that it was just straight numbers this month moving on to our facilities Department report um that was pretty pretty General we are looking at and excited to say that Myers Wilkins repairs have begun IC um is on site and they're supervising the scope we have some work being done on chillers for Meyers we also have some boilers inspections that have been done the Rock Ridge mechanical room um has had some work done and the home Croft cafeteria sopit rebuild um will be happening over winter break we just want to take a minute for our building's operation and acknowledge that we filled two new positions um operations have filled two new positions one a returning employee at East Ryan Zen graph and one at Lincoln Park Jacob Miller so thank you and welcome

096aboard Ryan and Jacob and then we have um have received couple letters of res um resignation for C custodians so again we have um two second shift engineer positions open at Denfeld and ordine one second shift engineer position open at Meers and two custodial positions open that Denfeld and L and if you watch Fox 21 in the morning you can watch our wonderful commercials talking about what a great place it is to work for our custodians and our facilities looking at our technology um for our technology we have of course very active um accounts across our district we also have a couple eate and RFP bids that are out you can check those on the agenda and I believe that was our technology report sure was and then moving on to Transportation um what we

097are seeing in transportation is we are still struggling with some staffing concerns again I public turn into Fox 21 in the morning you can see what a great job it is to be in transportation for the district so we continue to need more drivers and more helpers and and we always want to thank our transportation partners for helping us out when we are short drivers we have two recommended resolutions coming out of HR and business services one is the certified tax levy 2024 payable to 2025 the second is an acceptance of donations to the duth public schools we have several things that you can find on our consent agenda including our HR Staffing report coming from Finance you can see our fisc fiscal year 24 audit that we um was handed out to us earlier

098today you can see our financial report that um executive director zunich talks about look over on that far end and you can see our percentages and all um so that is available to the public as well we also have fundraisers we have one bid um and that is for bid 1333 for our transportation building Edition you heard superintendent magas speak about earlier under contracts change orders and leases we have a contract a letter of agency for rate consulting services that moves from January 2025 to 2026 and then we have some miscellaneous information as far as expenditure contracts no cost contracts and boo no Revenue contracts this month and that wraps up our HR Business Service committee meeting thank you questions I just have one observation about and it it probably could be answered by either

099member eer or um director Severance about it just seems like there's just like there's 23 new hires for our non-certified so we're actively and if you just look at the the new hires the retirements the the leaves of absence you're a busy Department because as you look at the fact that we hired 23 I mean we can celebrate that but you know then you have to just get your mind wrapped around interviews interview teams um um onboarding new employees and I I don't know for me it just seems like in the month of December our hiring should could have like kind of gone down and kind of stayed stable but we're continuing you know to see a lot of of not a lot but just maybe more than normal would you say about leaves and

100um and you know leaving the district resigning from positions um and then you know having to hire again I do think there there is um probably a higher percentage of leaves not sure what that's attributed to but um we are processing more than we probably typically do this time of year um the new hires I think we have you know a fair amount of turnover and just positions that hadn't yet been filled or the needs have become evident that we need additional staff I know in our special education PA professionals we've definitely noticed that so I think it's it is has increased but probably not overly unusual it's just depends on what we F in the September getting into December I guess what I want to share too with our community is just you know

101the the the the work that our HR department is doing and you know sometimes you'll you might hear and I hear it a little bit in transportation too you know where you know they don't somebody doesn't reply to the email right away or no one answers a phone or you know well when you're when you're hiring continually hiring or when the transportation staff are out driving buses because of people who are are sick on that day and you've got even your your lead you know clerical over there you know getting out and riding buses it may there's there's some something is going to give there but I just want to um compliment our workers and and tell them that we're I mean I'm glad that we're hiring that we have 23 new hires I know

102that some of those positions were because we didn't hire in the fall that was something we just couldn't find the people and now for some reason the the the advertising on the uh morning fox show there Mr Miss Miss eer to to all of the different Billboards we see around is uh is at least becoming aware and I I think we I think our employees also share with their colleagues or their friends or their family members come and work with us it it's really a good place to work so thank you member L County excellent report member eer um I just have a question and um I guess someone will else will have to answer it but in the technology report um it talked about a pilot program um uh if we were selected to

103participate in a cyber security pilot program as of December 3rd 2024 and I was just curious what that was referencing yeah B here I just wondered if any okay that's okay and you can get back to me I just didn't happened to many many district across the country we're applying for can you repeat the question I I I was just curious um about in the technology report um it talked about um a potential pilot program around cyber security um and I was curious about that I think we we'd be glad to look into it uh in Greater depth and get back to yeah no no problem thank you thanks Mr bonds just highlighting to and that cyber security as um member ller Kemp and I were at a delegate assembly looking at legislative PL asks

104that we're going to potentially as an msba go down and and Lobby for and and cyber you know so we we've tried to pass referendums for tech tech and now you know the the the community the msba community is saying hey we should you know let's just go ask for cyber security you know monies because that has you know grown so much that that would would help us so um I just thought that that was interesting and and more grants or just more money for for just targeted cyber security so that so that concludes the um report of the standing committee for human resources and business services so on to C um policy committee and chair of that committee is member laugher Kemp thank you so we met on um uh uh Tuesday December 3rd

105and and uh all all of the items that we'll be reviewing are on the consent agenda as well and so we had uh a few policies for first reading and I particularly want to uh thank uh Jen Lara and Dale for their work on uh many of the policies uh uh that we're talking about this time um but the first policy is policy 616 it's School District system accountability and the purpose of this poliy policy is to focus public education strategies on a process that promotes higher academic achievement for all students and ensures broad-based Community participation in decisions regarding implementation of the Minnesota K through2 academic standards and federal law and um this is a new policy for our district but we it was covered in um most of the areas uh in um some

106of our 6000 series so this policy would replace 6020 uh and also 6205 uh and this is also a mandatory policy and um uh yeah um I guess I would also just add is that uh I appreciated hearing um all the different committees that this policy re was reviewed through from the principles to our TLC's and content Specialists and and other folks so um that is the first policy uh for uh first or for the first reading and then policy 601 is School District curriculum and instruction goals and this uh kind of goes with this first policy as well uh the purpose of this policy is to establish broad curriculum parameters for the school district that Encompass the Minnesota academic standards and federal law and are aligned with comprehens of achievement and Civic Readiness and

107um uh if you go down this just kind of one thing that was noted is all of the definitions in section three are from Minnesota State Statute uh and um we um uh yeah and this is the first reading so uh the next one is uh policy 63 curriculum development and the purpose of this policy is to provide direction for continuous review and Improvement of the school curriculum and again uh you can read through that there was um under Section six uh a section that was uh deleted um uh a because it's already in 621 so um yep those are the policies for first reading and then um the next one for second reading is the literacy and the read act and we did change um the statement of purpose a little or the the

108purpose statement uh and uh you received a copy of it as well in your uh folders tonight but this policy aligns with Minnesota state law established in the 2023 read act and on other topics related to Reading duth Public Schools places a high value on literacy as a core component of students educational Journey the school district is committed to providing evidence-based reading instruction that is consistent with the read act ensuring that students develop strong reading and writing skills the school district emphasizes a comprehensive standard-based approach to literacy encompassing foundational skills vocabulary development reading fluency and reading comprehension this dedication to literacy aims to equip every student with the essential tools for academic success and lifelong learning in all subject areas and again um this is a a model policy that uh really follows uh the

109new state law that uh was passed in 2023 so that um was a policy for second reading and then uh policy um 6145 we're deleting it and this has to do with swimming pools and it's really just an outdated policy uh but some of the community use of pools falls under our facilities policies and then the last um piece is uh was more for informational but it's um the proposed isd709 curriculum review and adoption timeline again which relates to those first reading policies and I really again appreciate all the thought that was put into this timeline uh and um uh by our staff but also based on State updates as well so those were the uh items in our policy committee this month um did I miss anything uh members okay uh and uh the

110last thing I would just say again is our next policy meeting for January is January 14th at 3:30 and again I want to thanks our staff and thank Patty pette for all the work she has done with these policies thank you and just kind of a comment too because it you know it is our last official board meeting of December and so the Committees that we've had functioning um our HR business and our policy Committee of the whole I I can shout out to assistant superintendent Bond and his staff especially Shannon Brown who are always I mean he just told me the other day or last hour like what's on the agenda or coming up in our C meetings in February already not that we can't adjust and add things as we see some needs

111but um he's really a really great um vision for what what what needs to come before the board and and with the committee of the whole and we enjoy that but our policy committee is just rocking um under the leadership of member ller Kemp um for now I think know four years I think we brought the policy committee to a committee level four years ago and you've taken on that role and you've continued to have great support from um all you know like you've been on the policy committee right now you're in finance Kelly policy NOP always Finance okay brain um and so we've just really had strong committees and again when we have our staff that are bringing forth all of the necessary things you know policy is a big deal and we we

112need to show our community and our our especially our staff there that that's their guard rails the policies go to the policies and so I just want to um shout out to the Committees and you know it's kind of unique I I do a lot of coffee and conversation with msba and they're always we always kind of compare who's doing what and what's coming up um and and we're as a Schoolboard we're going to be presenting and mainly it's going to be led by Rosie and Kelly and myself and um superintendent um megas and assistant Super Pond but we are on the um in the program for our Min msba um conference in January and it's on committees because in that coffee and conversation time that I've been involved in they're really they they really

113um like the way that our committees are are working formed and and what we get done not everybody meets the way we do not every every every school board even has policy or you know a legisl or an HR business or they they do but it's in a different less formal and not you know not as transparent as we do our work and so um we've been asked to present at the msba on our committee structures and and we'll take you know everybody we're going to talk about what we can say say there we've got like an hour so let's let's rock run a Friday morning so we'll see how that goes but just great appreciation as we conclude another year of great work in HR business committee the whole um I I'm going to

114get all three of those improving systems um providing academic success uh some and and um and Equity Focus yeah I I even wrote it down in my in my folder because I want to say it a lot it does guide us it really does so then that goes to that goes to now number nine unless there's other comments about committees um number nine General board committee updates anybody go to any of our our committee meetings it's been a quiet month because of the holidays and because of December but I see someone quick thank you um I know the transportation services advisory committee has met only one time we have another meeting tomorrow and U that is at 10: a.m. so we're moving forward memb zow ski um I didn't because of the busyness of this

115month I haven't attended any extra ones either but I wanted to say thank you for um to member laugher Kemp for attending the head start meeting for me um because it was our company holiday party so thank you and then I saw member Williams and then we'll come back to member ller Kemp um I will be brief because I left my notes in my car by mistake um but I went to the parks and wreck meeting um last week at City Hall um and it was yeah it was good I went and there was a presentation on the um uh Park Point Community Club and um that was it then I had to leave early so there was other stuff I took notes sorry and member L km y thank you uh I uh appreciated

116being able to do the head start start policy meeting and just one of the things I wanted to share is um they've been um so the policy council is parents from all of the different sites and it's held at L and uh it's just such a great meeting to see um how parents take on leadership roles and Advocate and um they as part of their own training they had the business manager for Head Start Nancy Vega do a kind of funding Basics uh to train them on how to read a budget just like we are and uh so it was really uh it was great to be a part of that and um just uh again as you're thinking about those committees um it it's a really wonderful committee uh I know Amber uh enjoyed

117uh serving on it I I have and uh it's um uh so it's a great committee but just like Amber did I encourage people too if you can't make a meeting of any of your committees let us know and you know we can we can fill in if we can we're you know a team that really works um to work to support each other so uh appreciated that and that I was able to help out there um I also wanted to mention our dth Public Schools endowment fund uh is in their cycle now for going out to school staff meetings to talk about uh the grant process which uh the deadline is March 1st and so um uh board members from the uh endowment fund go out and do about a 10-minute presentation I'm actually

118training some of our new board members on um uh at the different staff meetings right now so you'll be hearing more about that but that process is just beginning for schools and uh staff to uh write a grant for $500 to $55,000 so those are my updates thank you thank you that continuing down our um agenda now that gets us to consent agenda and I'm looking for a motion to accept the consent agenda um member laugher Kemp makes the motion is there a second second by member eer and is there any discussion on the consent agenda um our board is really good about or our our committee chairs are good about highlighting what's on the consent agenda as they're going through their reports but just you know briefly you know there's minutes there's the HR

119Business Report and Staffing it's the um the other items brought forth in community of the whole meetings it's diploma requests and this this um month I just noticed a celebration that we have you know many of our students that will graduate now at in in December or January and and that's exciting to see that um opportunity and and uh celebrate that and um the policies that are for first reading are on there in second reading and when we approve the consent agenda that means we're approving everything on here it's been on our agenda and we've looked at it so all those in favor of passing the consent agenda say I opposed motion carries that brings us to um our number 11 which is resolutions and we have five of them between 11 and 12 so

120again um our we're looking at resolution a the certified tax levy did I give that to someone yep okay thank you uh chairl Holden School Board I move resolution B-12 d24 d471 the resolution for the certified tax levy of 2024 payable in 2025 is there a second second memb zelski seconds it is there any discussion would you like me to read the entire thing oh yes of course be it resolved by the school board of Independent School District 709 St Louis County Minnesota to hereby set the tax levy for 2024 payable in 2025 at 44 m959 1028 28 cents we have the motion and we have a second now that it's completely read does anybody have a question seeing none all those in favor of passing the motion say I I I or the resolution

121opposed resolution carries moving on to 11b our acceptance of donations I think that's member sidowski yes I move resolution B-1 12-24 472 um the acceptance of donation to Del Public Schools um I see a lot of good um very generous donations on here a couple to kden Denfeld one from CJ and Stephanie ham for the football program at denfield I see um a donation to the science department which is really great from UMD so I move resolution B-12 d24 472 is there a second member ller Kemp seconds is there any discussion seeing none all those in favor of motion B-12 d24 4072 say I I opposed motion continuing on our agenda number 12 at special resolutions and action items so we're looking at um 12 a for um approval and I think that is member

122ller Kemp uh I move resolution sp22 24469 this is School Board attendance at the 2025 nsba leadership conference resolve that Independent School District 709 St Louis County pay cost incurred as per District policy for school board members to attend the Minnesota School Board Association 2025 leadership conference in Minneapolis Minnesota on January 15 through 17 2025 is there is there a second to the motion okay member Williams seconds is there any questions discussion seeing none um all those in favor of resolution sp-12 d24 d469 say I I opposed motion carries moving on to 12b another resolution and member banks thank you uh this is resolution the SP 470 I move this resolution for approval the resolution reads School Board member attendance at msba learning to lead Workshop series and officers Workshop resolved that Independent School District

123709 St Louis County Minnesota pay cost incurred as per District policy for Schoolboard members to attend the msba learning to lead Workshop series and officers Workshop is there a second to member Banks's motion member zosi seconds all those in favor of the motion um for sp1 12- 24470 say I I I opposed motion carries moving down moving down our agenda I am looking at 12C a contract for American Rescue plan um amendment is that member eer no do we have that resolution yes okay um I make a motion to approve the American Rescue plan act subword agreement Amendment between St Louis County and the duth public schools second thank you I I remember seeing this in the agenda I'm just trying to recall what what all of that was about oh it's check and connect

124and the right okay thank you um all those in favor say I I opposed motion carries d budget reduction and realignment that's member eer and this is just a motion not a resolution so I move the school board of Independent School District 709 approved the budget re reallocation and realignment for a total of up to 7.6 million over the multi-year fiscal years 25 and fiscal year 26 the school board directed the administration to develop reductions to the amount for up to $2.6 million for 2024 2025 and up to $5 million for 2025 2026 the duth public schools and school districts ACR across Minnesota are facing significant challenging fiscal environments due to a number of factors including increases in operating costs unfunded mandates and the sunsetting of federal pandemic relief funds duth Public Schools is facing

125a budget shortfall for the 2025 26 school year and the foreseeable future The District administration is recommending a $5 million budget adjustment for the fiscal year 26 as part of a budget realignment after multiple meetings with staff the school board and the district administrators and leadership are in the process of finalizing recommendations to meet that amount this process has included opportunities for community staff student and family feedback we have a motion I'll I'll second it as board chair is there any conversation or discussion or question see none all those in favor of the motion sorry just have one one comment um that as as we discussed uh you you've you understand where we are with our plans to this point but I just want to point out to all of you for for series of

126checks and balances uh hypothetically if we were to deviate drastically from what we've we've talked about you have uh other remedies uh down the line you could you could vote against the the approval of the budget which is a much more formal action down the line so this is I just wanted to point out that that this is not a uh no holds SP we can do whatever we want after you vote for this this this is just the step moving us forward so just want to point that out for for you as board members which you probably understand already from our previous conversations but also just so the public knows we're at as well perfect so all those in favor of the motion say I I I opposed motion carries that brings us to

127um item 13 are there any questions or other other other things oh member but if there's anybody else your cup is in front of your microphone so I can't see did you just turn it okay thank you just as we kind of wrap up um uh as a board we wanted to thank a few folks for the excellent um work and a little holiday cheer um uh and we of course thank all of our staff across the district for um the work they've done this half of the year and the the um the dedication to the duth public schools but tonight we just wanted to um recognize a few folks and just um uh share with you uh a point set of plant uh and you guys can fight over which one you want uh

128but one of the people we wanted to recognize is Simone uh and just uh as by her many reports that happened tonight and uh uh the the the work that she has uh and her team have done this month on getting ready for the audit or doing the audit and and uh the truth and Taxation and the many budget meetings and that we just just wanted to again show our appreciation and thank you um and uh give you a point seta to for some holiday cheer as well so thank you Simone again yeah and and then also on behalf of the board uh we we can't do the work that we do without the great work that Patty pette our executive assistant uh does to support us and uh in many ways uh and so

129uh Patty uh appoints that a you some holiday cheer uh and thank you again for all the ways you support us as a school board [Laughter] so yeah so thank you again Patty okay and then uh the the the and again uh there's there's so many people we could thank but we just also wanted to recognize um uh our our uh chair this year uh Joel oo for um all the work that she's done uh all the time she has spent um both uh supporting us as board members uh facilitating meetings um being on endless uh coping conversations that we get updates on and uh just really being a a a strong board leader and putting in the time that it takes and also um the extra time so uh just again um thank you

130so much uh Jill from the board as well yeah so uh thank you well that's sweet that's very sweet that's sweet for for all of us and yeah it's it's like where do you stop so I'll be buying some chocolate for all of us so we're looking for a motion to adjourn member eer makes the motion is there a second member Mike so makes this she did it with eye contact all those in favor of adjournment say I I